Plant Genomics

Overview

“One type of rice nourishes one hundred types of people.” That ancient Chinese proverb reflects the importance of plants in sustaining life for people, and the study of plants is vitally important to ensuring that these essential partners survive and thrive. Plants provide much of the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and the shade and scenery we enjoy. Plant genomics has been an integral part of the JCVI legacy for many years starting with our work on the first sequencing project of a plant, Arabidopsis, which was published in the journal Nature in 2000.

There are now more than a dozen major research projects underway at JCVI involving a wide range of plant species, including rice, continued work on Arabidopsis, potato, maize, Medicago, soybean, tomato, barley, pine, onion, banana, and several microbial pathogens that afflict important crops. Taking steps well beyond the basic sequencing of plant DNA, researchers at JCVI are also using cutting-edge technologies to examine the functions of plant genes, to compare them to the genes of related species, and to track the complex metabolic pathways through which plants convert energy to support life.

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