The President’s Research Excellence (PRE) Accelerator Grant program provides funding for principal and co- investigators across the colleges of Ohio State to expand on high-risk, high-reward research projects. These interdisciplinary projects have an increased likelihood of obtaining external funding, growing the university’s research and innovation potential. This year, the Office of Knowledge Enterprise has awarded up to 50,000 dollars to fifteen proposals. Two of the fifteen selected proposals have intentional sustainability research outcomes.
Guo-Liang Wang, professor of molecular biology of plant-microbe interactions and plant immunity, is one of these two award recipients. An OSU Distinguished Scholar from the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences, Wang has investigated an innovative strategy that builds upon natural immunity and creates increased protection for crops utilizing host proteins, avoiding the need for chemicals.
“I have had a longstanding interest in decreasing chemical applications even while striving to increase yield in rice production, a staple crop that feeds half of the world’s population,” Wang said.
This new technique could create a major breakthrough in solving world food insecurity, a problem that is only increasing, as the global demand for food will increase two-fold by 2050. Avoiding chemicals and pesticides leads to a healthier product and better-quality food for all.
The project builds on existing research and takes previous findings in a new and innovative direction.
“We have sought to tackle the challenge of engineering durable resistance to pathogens in rice by leveraging our recent and exciting finding that overexpression of a single protein could enhance immunity to fungal and bacterial pathogens,” Wang explained.
Sarah Short is the other of these members. Short, who has a PhD in genetics, works in Ohio State’s Department of Entomology. Her work addresses the issues of disease spread by mosquitos, like dengue. Pathogens transmitted by the insects cause millions of cases of various illnesses a year, many of which result in death.
Storm water catch basins function as one of the primary breeding grounds for mosquitos, so Short wanted to address the problem at the root. Her experimentation tests if microsporidian parasites, a specific type of unicellular parasite that has the capacity to form spores, could have the potential to limit mosquito breeding in such basins, instead of more widespread use of traditional pesticides. Ryan Winston, Assistant Professor with the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering and a Sustainability Institute core faculty member is serving as a co-investigator on this project, as is Risa Pesapane, Assistant Professor with the College of Veterinary Medicine.
“We are always looking for new, targeted ways to reduce populations of mosquitoes that transmit pathogens. With this project, we will explore the possibility of using natural parasites of mosquitoes to reduce their numbers in stormwater infrastructure," Short said.
Story by Aurora Ellis, student communications assistant