Shibu Jose, CAFNR associate dean for research, has announced this year’s group of proposals funded by CAFNR’s Joy of Discovery Seed Grant Program. The program supports nascent, multidisciplinary research with the goal of developing a competitive proposal for federal funding.

The following proposals — listed by the Principal Investigator (PI), Co-PIs and title of the project — were selected:

• Prashant Sonawane (Biochemistry); Peter Cornish; Harnessing Plant Natural Products for Discovery of Novel Antibiotics
• Xiaoping Xin (School of Natural Resources); Mandy Bish; Optimization of ZnO-modified Biochar-Hydrogel nanocompsites for Suppression of Soybean Cyst Nematode and Enhancement of Soil Health in Soybean Systems
• Marcelo Barbosa (Plant Sciences); Andre Reis; A Multi-Source Data Framework for High-Resolution Field Monitoring: Toward Next-Generation Precision Agriculture
• Stephanie Gates (Biochemistry); Scott Peck; New Roles for CDC48-Family in Regulating Responses to Plant Biotic and Abiotic Stresses
• Jagdeep Sidhu (Plant Sciences); Joseph Lynch and Xiaoping Xin; AlleloWheat: Increasing Allelopathic Weed Suppresion in Wheat via Rye Chromosome Introgression
• Seth Meyer (Division of Applied Social Sciences); Irma Arteaga and Hoa Hoang; The impact of SNAP restrictions on SNAP households’ food purchases and nutrition security
• Qian Liu (School of Natural Resources); Wanxin Li; Artificial Intelligence for Global Seasonal Weather Prediction Across Multiple Atmospheric Layers
• Elizabeth Parks (Food, Nutrition & Exercise Sciences); Jessica George and Steven Richberg; Method development for the measurement of human ceramide synthesis
• Soyon Park (Plant Sciences); Host-Mediated Genome Editing to Disrupt Endogenous Genes in Phelipanche ramosa
• Xi Xiong (Plant Sciences); Gary Baker; Mitigating Micro- and Nanoplastic Contamination in Hydroponic Systems to Improve Food Safety
• Marc Libault (Plant Sciences); Rajashree Pradhan; Towards capturing the biological activity of single microbes
• Michael Sunde (School of Natural Resources); Bimal Gyawali; Enhancing Forest Health Monitoring in Missouri Using Multi-Source Remote Sensing Data
• Ivair Valmorbida (Plant Sciences); David S. Kang and Liz Regina Souza Silva; In-season phenology, environmental suitability, and potential damage of Dalbulus maidis (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) in Missouri corn
• Chung-Ho Lin (School of Natural Resources); Elizabeth Rogers, Ronald Zalensy Jr., Erin Johnston, Ryan Vinhal, Jacob Dessellier, Katherine Heckman, Evan Kane and Karena Schmidt; Assessing In Situ Bioremediation of Heavy Metals for Sustainable Management of Mining Waste in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
• Rocío Melissa Rivera (Animal Sciences); Hector Nava-Trujillo; Do imprinted genes control growth, or rather growth and fetal sex control the epigenetic regulation and expression of imprinted genes?
• Joseph Lynch (Plant Sciences); Leland Cseke; Terp-SNIFF: A Scalable High-Throughput Platform for Linking Terpene Synthase Genetics to Flavor and Aroma in Hops