Blatent self-shill: The work I did on my master's project laid the groundwork for "largest field-based study of genetically modified forest trees."
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And the work was successful!
The study itself start in 2011. This was a field test to see if genetically modified trees could be grown without producing seeds. Why? Because we don't want artificial genetic constructs -- from engineering -- escaping into the natural habitat. Any genetically modified tree (or plant for that matter) should be absolutely sterile.
Way back when I was in graduate school, I was mapping the flower-related genes to know which genes to target. The thought was that, if we disabled these genes to the point that the trees would never produce flowers, then they could never produce seeds either.
I got close, but it took a bit more work after I graduated to nail down the exact genes. Then Dr. Strauss and the lab spent about 15 years figuring out different options for disrupting those genes, do the bench research, and conduct greenhouse trials.
They came up with about two dozen different mechanisms to disrupt 15 floral genes and showed (in greenhouse trials) that they worked.
Then they planted these field plots.
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Responses:
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