HONOR: Elected AAAS fellow 2006 (details) |
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RESEARCH Research in the Wurtzel laboratory is directed at solving a global health problem of vitamin A deficiency that affects 250,000,000 children worldwide and leads to increased childhood mortality. World wide Vitamin A deficiency is linked to diets deficient specifically in pro-vitamin A carotenoids. To alleviate this public health problem, genomic tools are being used to analyze plant collections with genetic and chemical diversity in order to understand how crop plants control their chemistry; for a plant to make novel medicinal compounds or vitamins requires expression of genes controlling specific biosynthetic pathways. To harness the untapped potential of plants to provide nutraceuticals or even yet to be discovered drugs to treat disease or new sources of energy, requires investigation of biosynthetic pathways using tools of molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, chemistry, and biochemistry, combined with classical botanical phylogenetic studies. Current research in the Wurtzel laboratory incorporates such tools to investigate carotenoid accumulation in important food crops such as maize, wheat, and rice. The present goal is to understand, at the molecular and biochemical level, how plants regulate the biosynthesis and accumulation of provitamin A carotenoids in the seed endosperm tissue. This research is leading to improved strategies for predicting plant chemistry and enhancing provitamin A carotenoid content. POSITIONS (link for application and other info)
PUBLICATIONS, SELECTED RESEARCH GROUP This research is carried out by the cooperative efforts of graduate and undergraduate students and visiting postdoctoral scientists. Graduate students are enrolled in the CUNY doctoral programs in Biology (Plant Sciences; Molecular Biology) and Biochemistry and in the Lehman College Biology Masters program. Undergraduates are enrolled at Lehman College. The City University of New York (CUNY), situated in one of the world's pre-eminent cities, is the largest urban university in the United States and its third-largest public university system. Some 200,000 students are enrolled for degrees on 20 campuses in all five boroughs of New York City. GRANT SUPPORT This research has been funded by The National Institutes of Health since 1987; funding has also been obtained from The Rockefeller Foundation International Program in Rice Biotechnology, The Rockefeller Foundation Biotechnology Career Fellowship Program, PSC-CUNY, The American Cancer Society, and The McKnight Foundation Plant Biology Program. The Lehman College Molecular Biology Laboratory, where molecular and biochemical studies are carried out, has been funded by the National Science Foundation RIMI Program, Ciba-Geigy Corporation, CUNY Center for Applied Biotechnology and Biomedicine (CABB), and GRI (New York State Graduate Research Initiative Program). E. Wurtzel is also a member of the New York State Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) in Photonics Applications at CUNY. LINKS
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last edited 01/27/2008