USDA geneticist receives National Academy of Science’s prize in food, ag
The National Academy of Science (NAS) has named Edward Buckler, geneticist with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS), the first person to receive its Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences.
The National Academy of Science (NAS) has named Edward Buckler, geneticist with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS), the first person to receive its Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences. Buckler will be recognized for pioneering the use of large-scale genomic approaches linking genes with the crop’s physical traits. This work is giving plant breeders better access to key genes and reducing the time needed to improve critical traits that enhance food security.
Buckler, an NAS member, works at the ARS Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Research Unit in Ithaca, N.Y. He began his large-scale genomics work by developing an encyclopedic amount of information relating the 40,000 genes and nearly 2.3 million base pairs in the maize genome to specific traits in the field. Then, to manage the mountain of data such work generates, he created software packages and algorithms that automate the screening and analysis of the genetic diversity. This makes it possible for even modest breeding programs to efficiently identify and select the parents most likely to produce offspring with new and improved traits.
Buckler and his collaborators have already developed non-genetically engineered maize varieties with 15 times the typical level of vitamin A—providing a solution to a common sight-threatening deficiency in the developing world. He and his group also have addressed other agricultural traits crucial to improving food security such as local adaptation, drought tolerance, and disease resistance.
The NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences recognizes research by a mid-career scientist at a U.S. institution who has made an extraordinary contribution to agriculture. The prize is endowed through generous gifts from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.