“Halophytes and heavy metals: A multi-omics approach to understand the role of gene and genome duplication in the abiotic stress tolerance of Cakile maritima” was published in the American Journal of Botany, a combined effort between CAFNR students and computer sciences students.

This paper was initiated by an National Science Foundation funded program called BIPS (bioinformatics in plant sciences) that pairs two undergraduate researchers together, one in biology and one in computation, to tackle large biological problems. The paper was led by a graduate student in plant phylogenomics and computational biology, Shawn Thomas, and two undergraduates: Kathryn Vaden Hoek (senior, biochemistry) and Tasha Ogoti (computer science), and other CAFNR faculty.

“I think this paper is a great example of the power of incorporating undergraduates in research,” said Craig Schenck, assistant professor in biochemistry. “Our work also sheds light on how we can engineer crops to be more tolerant to salt and heavy metal stresses, two things that are major issues in agriculture today.”