Plant Biotechnology for Health and Sustainability

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Plants convert sunlight into chemical energy, synthesizing hundreds of thousands of organic compounds from carbon dioxide and minerals, and sustaining life on earth. Plants and photosynthetic bacteria shape our environment and create the atmospheric oxygen we breathe, making life on earth possible. Thus, plants provide humans with essential nutrients, medicines, shelter and energy. For millennia, humans have harvested and utilized plants to produce foods, pharmaceuticals, and fuels. Human benefits from plants progressed from foraging to intensive agriculture and currently derive from biotechnology and synthetic biology. Utilizing the metabolic potential of photosynthetic organisms in an increasingly sustainable manner requires the expertise of plant biologists, microbiologists, and biotechnologists. While biotechnology can address many of the challenges currently threatening our well-being, maintaining or improving the health of a growing world population in the face of a changing environment requires that plant and microbial scientists receive innovative and cross- disciplinary training. The Plant Biotechnology for Health and Sustainability (PBHS) graduate training program fosters the education, training, and professional development of the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists who will assume leadership positions in biotechnology-related careers including academia, industry, entrepreneurship, and government. PBHS emphasizes a set of core competencies, including knowledge of a broad set of technical domains, developing critical thinking and communication skills essential for effective collaboration across disciplines. A training emphasis is placed on building specific skill sets designed to promote personal and professional development. Bachelor’s and master’s degree level trainees enter the PBHS program at the start of their third semester of predoctoral training. During the second year of predoctoral work, trainees take specialized courses designed to cover current concepts in plant and microbial biotechnology, computational research and bioinformatics, effective management of collaborative efforts, and approaches for translation of basic research into commercial products. The program will provide two years of support to six predoctoral students at a time. For the duration of their predoctoral training, the fellows will continue to participate in program professional development activities, including training in reproducible science, mentoring, and communication skills development. The program includes support for students to participate in industrial internships as well as annual symposia and retreats designed to build a student cohort, broaden the professional networks of trainees, and highlight cutting-edge plant biotechnologies.