By Jason Keese
UNMC researchers will bring expertise in artificial intelligence and computational biology to a new $6 million National Science Foundation project focused on developing stronger, more resilient cereal crops.
The four-year project, co-led by the University of Idaho, UNMC and Clemson University, brings together specialists in artificial intelligence, engineering, plant biology and genetics. Researchers will study stalk lodging, a condition in which crop stems weaken or fail, causing plants to fall before they can be harvested.
Lodging can be triggered by wind and other environmental stresses and can reduce both crop yield and quality. The research will focus on cereal crops, including wheat, corn and sorghum.
At UNMC, Shibiao Wan, PhD, assistant professor in the UNMC Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, will serve as the principal investigator for the project’s AI team, and Jieqiong Wang, PhD, assistant professor in the UNMC Department of Neurological Sciences, will serve as the co-principal investigator. They will use genomic, imaging, biomechanical and other data generated across the collaboration to develop a multimodal large language model aimed at identifying characteristics associated with stronger, more resilient plants.
Source : unmc.edu