RxPG News Feed for RxPG News

Medical Research Health Special Topics World
  Home
 
   Health
 Aging
 Asian Health
 Events
 Fitness
 Food & Nutrition
 Happiness
 Men's Health
 Mental Health
 Occupational Health
 Parenting
 Public Health
 Sleep Hygiene
 Women's Health
 
   Healthcare
 Africa
 Australia
 Canada Healthcare
 China Healthcare
 India Healthcare
 New Zealand
 South Africa
 UK
 USA
 World Healthcare
 
 Latest Research
 Aging
 Alternative Medicine
 Anaethesia
 Biochemistry
 Biotechnology
 Cancer
 Cardiology
 Clinical Trials
 Cytology
 Dental
 Dermatology
 Embryology
 Endocrinology
 ENT
 Environment
 Epidemiology
 Gastroenterology
 Genetics
 Gynaecology
 Haematology
 Immunology
 Infectious Diseases
 Medicine
 Metabolism
 Microbiology
 Musculoskeletal
 Nephrology
 Neurosciences
 Obstetrics
 Ophthalmology
 Orthopedics
 Paediatrics
 Pathology
 Pharmacology
 Physiology
 Physiotherapy
 Psychiatry
 Radiology
 Rheumatology
 Sports Medicine
 Surgery
 Toxicology
 Urology
 
   Medical News
 Awards & Prizes
 Epidemics
 Launch
 Opinion
 Professionals
 
   Special Topics
 Ethics
 Euthanasia
 Evolution
 Feature
 Odd Medical News
 Climate

Last Updated: Sep 15, 2017 - 4:49:58 AM
Research Article
Latest Research Channel

subscribe to Latest Research newsletter
Latest Research

   EMAIL   |   PRINT

USDA grant advancing deadly plant disease, insect research


Jan 23, 2013 - 5:00:00 AM

 

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A competitive grant is helping a Kansas State University doctoral student turn the insect responsible for spreading one of the worst plant diseases into a tool that stifles the disease's transmission.

Ismael E. Badillo-Vargas, a plant pathology doctoral student, Puerto Rico, recently was awarded a predoctoral fellowship grant of more than $71,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The competitive scholarship is awarded to agriculture students who have two more years to complete their doctoral degree programs. Recipients receive two years of funding for research expenditures, tuition, a graduate research salary and conference travel.

For Badillo-Vargas, the fellowship advances his research on the tomato spotted wilt virus and its relationship to thrips -- tiny, winged insects that carry and spread the plant disease.

Tomato spotted wilt virus is one of the 10 most devastating plant viruses, according to the USDA. The virus, which kills a variety of food-producing plants, causes about $100 million in U.S. crop losses and roughly $1 billion in global crop losses every year.

The virus is transmitted to plants by the western flower thrips. The virus, however, does not harm the thrips that carry it and replicate the virus. Badillo-Vargas wants to understand why.

He is looking at how the tomato spotted wilt virus affects thrips at the molecular level. Badillo-Vargas is identifying which of the insect's proteins interact with the virus. In doing so, he and other researchers can target these proteins with genetic techniques that could turn off the insect's immunity to the virus.

The idea is that this may keep the insect from being able to spread the virus anymore, Badillo-Vargas said. It could stop the insect from being able to carry the tomato spotted wilt virus or even kill the insect with the virus because its defense system would be gone. Ultimately it would let us control the spread of the virus and also the insect itself, which is an agricultural pest and disease vector.

Badillo-Vargas is developing a RNA interference, or RNAi -- a short sequence of genetic information that could knock down the insect's protective genes. The RNAi could be delivered through a spray that only affects thrips or possibly even delivered to thrips by the plants themselves.

Badillo-Vargas is using a partial transcriptome of the thrip's genes that was produced by Dorith Rotenberg, research assistant professor of plant pathology. The transcriptome is a scientific tool that acts as a reference catalog for certain genes in the thrips. Rotenberg is working to sequence the thrip's genome, which will be a complete genetic blueprint of the insect and all of its genes.

With the partial transcriptome I'm starting to look at certain genes that I believe can be silenced with RNAi because they have a potential interaction between the virus and the insect, Badillo-Vargas said. Some of these molecules were able to be silenced in other insects when RNAi tools were used on them. In some cases it even killed the insect.

The research will build on a study by Badillo-Vargas that was published in the August 2012 edition of the


Subscribe to Latest Research Newsletter

Enter your email address:


 Feedback
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send any medical news or health news press releases, use feedback form

Top of Page

 
Contact us

RxPG Online

Nerve

Online ACLS Certification

 

    Full Text RSS

© All rights reserved by RxPG Medical Solutions Private Limited (India)