THE PROGRAM

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center will direct an undergraduate research program during Summer 2008. The program is part of the Integrated Biological Sciences Summer Research Program, which provides students an opportunity to conduct research as well as interact with peers in an interdisciplinary learning community. Participating undergraduate students will spend ten weeks in a laboratory conducting full-time research in microbial conversion of biomass to biofuels, genomics, enzymology, protein structure, molecular biology, and plant breeding.

OBJECTIVES

The program provides students with the opportunity to test their interests in a scientific career by becoming engaged in an active research program in a recognized scientific laboratory. Participating students conduct their own research project under the direction of a faculty member and work as part of a laboratory research team investigating fundamental problems in microbiology and molecular biology.

SUPPORT

The program provides a stipend of $4,200, full support for travel, housing, health insurance (if needed), and a partial food allowance. Students have access to all campus libraries and facilities. There are no fees or tuition costs.

ELIGIBILITY

Undergraduate students majoring in the biological sciences, preferably between their junior and senior years, who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents enrolled in an accredited college or university, are eligible to apply. The applicant should have a strong interest in a career in biological research. Disabled students, minority students, and students from smaller liberal arts institutions where comparable research facilities are unavailable are particularly encouraged to apply.

SELECTION PROCESS

Criteria for selection are based on academic qualifications as determined by academic record and prior course work, two letters of recommendation from college science teachers or advisors, and a statement from applicants regarding their career interests and reasons for applying to this program. Letters of recommendation should address the applicant’s potential for a research career and the opportunities for a meaningful research experience at the student’s home institution. Preference will be given to juniors and seniors whose primary interests are a career in research in the biological sciences.

APPLICATION
Click on the link above to apply online. All application materials must be received by February 15, 2008. Please note that the applicant is responsible for filing a complete application consisting of Part 1 is the completed application form with a statement of career objectives. Part 2 consists of two letters of recommendation from individuals who are familiar with your academic abilities and potential to do research. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Timothy Donohue
Department of Bacteriology

Research interests: harvesting the power of biological energy generation

We analyze how cells generate biomass or biofuels from sunlight or other renewable energy sources. To do this, we study metabolic pathways and regulatory networks of the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides. We take advantage of the R. sphaeroides genome sequence, microarrays, proteomics and molecular techniques to decipher how the energy in sunlight or renewable nutrients is funneled into cell material or biofuel formation.

Our long range goals are to identify metabolic and regulatory activities that are critical to bioenergy formation, to obtain a thorough understanding of energy-generating pathways of agricultural, environmental and medical importance, and to use computational models to increase the ability of microbes to utilize sunlight, generate renewable sources of energy, remove greenhouse gases or other toxic compounds, and synthesize compounds that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Shawn Kaeppler, Heidi Kaeppler, Natalia de Leon
Department of Agronomy

Research Interests: corn genes and genotypes

Our primary research approach utilizes genetic and genomic technologies to understand genes in corn important for productivity, and to develop useful corn germplasm. Our research related to biofuels is designed to understand the genes and genotypes that maximize the amount and efficiency of ethanol production per unit of land and per unit of energy input. This research utilizes genetic approaches to identify genes underlying complex phenotypes. Genomic technologies used in this research include microarrays, transformation, and sequence analysis. Summer students who work with our project participate in molecular studies in the laboratory as well as have the opportunity to measure and pollinate plants in the field. An overarching objective of our research is to apply laboratory research to solving practical and important problems in agriculture.

John Markley
Department of Biochemistry

Students will join our “Team Metabolon”, which consists of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs. This group analyzes mixtures of metabolites from biomass to identify and quantify the most abundant soluble constituents. We work with researchers developing improved methods for breaking down biomass and enriching the product with compounds on pathways to biofuels. Our approach is to carry out extractions and to use two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to identify the molecules present. Students will learn how to perform extractions and make up solutions of standard compounds used for quantitative analysis. They will participate in NMR data collection and analysis and learn to use our computerized tools that automate these processes. Students with particular interest in bioinformatics and computer science can participate in developing our database of NMR spectra and the tools that use this database. For more information, see http://mmcd.nmrfam.wisc.edu/.

Patrick Masson
Department of Genetics

The cytoskeletal microtubular network plays critical roles in plant morphogenesis and biomass production by mediating cell division and modulating the anisotropic expansion of interphase cells. In turn, the latter process governs guided organs growth (“tropism”) toward sites within their direct environment that are better suited for optimal performance of their primary functions. The Masson laboratory has used the complex root growth behaviors displayed by Arabidopsis seedlings growing on tilted hard-agar surfaces as a phenotype to uncover mutations that affect genes involved in the regulation of the dynamic instability of cortical microtubules in expanding interphase cells. Recent work has focused on a family of plant-specific proteins that appear to modulate the bundling of cortical microtubules in expanding cells of the plant. Undergraduate Summer Research projects will be aimed at further characterizing the root-growth behavioral and hormonal-response phenotypes associated with single, double and multiple mutations in these genes.

Michael Sussman
Department of Biochemistry

Systems biology describes a new means of studying a specific aspect of biology using a genome wide profiling method to determine how changes in the transcriptome, proteome and metabolome are engaged with each other, to elicit the phenotype or developmental and environmental change under study. Thrust 5 is in charge of creating and providing enabling technologies that allow each of the other thrusts to use this powerful new tool for understanding and manipulating the metabolic pathways that underlie the use of plants and microbes for biofuel applications. A critical aspect of this approach is a QUANTITATIVE approach to profiling changes in the RNA, proteins and small molecules and examining how these changes are affected by each other in response to any particular perturbation under study. For example, one can use reverse genetics to ‘knockout’ one or more genes and study how the absence of the proteins encoded by those genes (or RNA’s for genes that act without coding for proteins) perturbs the system. Similarly, drugs or environmental perturbations can be used to create quantitative changes in the transcriptome, proteome and metabolome whose measurements reveal how the various molecular components of cells create the amazing varieties of phenotypes that allow us to harness plants and microbes for our own benefit. Synthetic biology (gene synthesis), protein engineering and computational modeling are also important areas of research in which the students