I made it to BioQUEST yesterday. At the hotel in the morning, I checked that I could actually attend to my personal needs (like putting on shoes and socks) and, after a quick breakfast with Phil and Jackie, I got in the car and drove to St. Louis. I'm still not very mobile, but I can hobble around enough to survive.
After introductory remarks, I participated in a session on developing a problem-space in desiccation tolerance for teaching advanced techniques in plant biology. The approach one scientist is using involves constructing phylogenomic trees to see whether genes involved in desiccation were recruited from stress pathways or seed/pollen pathways. There was a parallel session on GIS. After dinner, there was a talk about cassava and ongoing attempts to improve the cassava plant to make it a more attractive crop. Cassava has been neglected because, although its very widely cultivated, its mainly used by poor people who don't participate in the money economy and, therefore, it doesn't have big economic impacts the way rice or corn does.
Today, we finish up at the Botanical Gardens and drive south to Cape Girardeau where we'll be for the rest of the workshop.
- Steven D. Brewer's blog
- Log in to post comments