News release issued November 20, 2000, effective immediately.

Noble Foundation Appoints Meinke First Adjunct Professor

ARDMORE, Okla. — Future research on forage legumes and grasses, as well as plants grown for human consumption, will benefit from new interactions between plant biologists at the Ardmore-based Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and Oklahoma State University's Department of Botany.

A noted OSU plant scientist has become the first Adjunct Professor of the Noble Foundation's Plant Biology Division, serving as an advisor for the Division's growing Medicago truncatula functional genomics program. Dr. David Meinke has worked for the past 25 years to establish Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant with a simple genome, as a model species for research in plant molecular genetics. That work melds closely with the Foundation's efforts to establish Medicago truncatula, a plant that also has a small genome, as a model legume for genetic studies. Medicago truncatula will be of particular value for studies on nitrogen fixation, mycorrhizal associations, biosynthesis of certain classes of natural products, and forage quality — important plant traits for which Arabidopsis is not a good model.

"Dr. Meinke is a highly respected scientist working on the identification of essential genes for embryo development in the model plant Arabidopsis," said Dr. Rick Dixon, director of the Noble Foundation Plant Biology Division. "He is one of the major players in the Arabidopsis field, and his work has had broad impact on our understanding of embryo development in plants, as well as promoting the use of Arabidopsis as a model genetic species."

The Noble Foundation established its Medicago truncatula genomics program last year and immediately set to work establishing resources to allow researchers worldwide access to its gene sequence databases. The program integrates gene expression profiling, proteomics and metabolic profiling, and is expected to make a significant contribution to legume molecular biology on a global scale. It is intended that biological material from the program will be distributed to scientists worldwide. "The resulting multidisciplinary databases will be interfaced to provide scientists with an integrated set of tools to address fundamental questions pertaining to legume biology," said Dr. Greg May, NF Staff Scientist coordinating the Division's Medicago program.

Meinke, Regents Professor of Botany at OSU-Stillwater, began working on the isolation and characterization of embryo-defective mutants two and a half decades ago as a graduate student at Yale University in the laboratory of Professor Ian Sussex. The six mutants analyzed for his Ph.D. dissertation formed the basis for publications on Arabidopsis as a model system for plant developmental genetics. Since then, his lab has isolated and characterized more than 1500 embryo-defective mutants of Arabidopsis, and many of these studies have appeared as seminal papers in premiere scientific journals.

Meinke is enthusiastic about his new appointment.

"These are exciting times for basic research in molecular plant biology at the regional, national, and international levels," he said. "I look forward to applying my research experience with Arabidopsis to the development of another model system with great potential for improving agriculture and human health. With continued input from the Noble Foundation, Oklahoma has the potential become a leader in this important area of modern biology."

"We are proud to have Dr. Meinke associated with the Plant Biology Division and look forward to benefiting from his experience with model genetic systems," Dixon said.

###

Photos: Meinke-Color | Meinke-B/W | Dixon-B/W

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, check out the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release