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thePeorian.com
Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Rooney
is a research leader for the Crop
Bioprotection Research Unit and
he collaborated with Ward to
establish the genomic sequencing
center at NCAUR. “Our work
goes beyond just fighting
organisms,” he says. “We want
to use them. Genetic sequencing
allows us to find better ways to
do that.”
Using nature’s own antagonists
to fight each other is a key
principle in reducing the use of
petro-based chemicals to control
our environment. For example,
a group of bacteria called
Bacillus is a natural enemy of the
Fusarium fungus that causes so
much damage.
Enter another military concept:
The enemy of my enemy is my
friend.
“
Our researchers are mapping
the entire genome of a certain
species of Bacillus so that we can
identify unique anti-fungal genes
and understand how they work
against Fusarium. We know if
those genes exist in one strain of
bacteria, other strains may have
them too,” says Rooney. “That’s
important to find out because
some strains of bacteria work
more effectively than others.”
Once those anti-fungal genes
are identified, researchers can
look for them in other bacteria
found in nature, or by screening
the tens of thousands of bacteria
within the nearly 100,000
microbes housed at NCAUR. The
more bacteria with the same anti-
fungal gene that can be recruited,
the greater the array of microbial
“
soldiers” potentially available
to fight against the fungus, the
scientists said.
The Future
(
Photo by Kate O’Hara) Dr. David Labeda configures the high
performance Linux cluster running software for the assembly
and analysis of genomic data generated by the genome
sequencing laboratory at the Peoria Ag Lab.
