Decoding gall induction by insects
John Tooker (with Tanya Renner, Rose Zhu, and Timothy Moural)
The Problem: Compared to some animal species, scientists have had limited success manipulating plant traits. With food security issues on the rise across the globe, the scientific community needs additional methodologies to alter plants for faster growth, increased nutritional value, and greater pest-resistance.
The Idea: Take a lesson from gall-inducing insects that produce a range of powerful manipulations in host plants. Specifically, use transcriptomics and metabolomics to understand how a caterpillar species, Gnorimoschema gallaesolidaginis, induces galls on the common plant species, Solidago altissima. If possible, use the resulting discoveries to develop novel ways to manipulate plants using insect-derived molecules.
The Risk: Few researchers have used modern molecular approaches to understand how gall insects gain control of plants. A specific outcome cannot be guaranteed.
Development of standardized additives for predictable, reliable, and reproducible electron cryo- microscopy purposes
Jean-Paul Armache (with Sung Hyun Cho)
The Problem: The process of freezing samples for electron cryo-microscopy characterization is stochastic and often unpredictable. As a result, it is difficult and time consuming to achieve optimal freezing results.
The Idea: Investigate proteins from extremophiles – specifically, organisms living in arctic conditions – to tackle dehydration, high radiation, and low temperatures. By exploring the usability of the disordered tardigrade protein CAHS D in cryo-EM grid preparation, the researchers aim to create optimal and reproducible freezing results that lower costs, speed up sample preparation, and improve reproducibility.
The Risk: The use of disordered tardigrade protein CAHS D to create predictable and reproducible cryo-electron microscopy results is a new, unproven approach.
Single-molecule based design/build/test pipeline for engineering improved plastic degrading enzymes to address microplastics pollution
William Hancock (with Howard Salis)
The Problem: There is growing evidence that nanoplastics are neurotoxic, and that the presence of microplastics in drinking water increases heart disease risk via accumulation in carotid artery plaques.
The Idea: Improve upon the established capacity for certain enzymes to degrade both crystalline and amorphous PET plastic, including nanoplastics, by binding to PET surfaces and carrying out depolymerization reaction. This project will develop a pipeline for designing, producing, and characterizing PETase enzymes to quantitatively determine their microscopic enzymatic activities using single-molecule analysis. Additionally, the researchers aim to develop a novel, high-throughput platform for measuring the kinetics of enzyme-catalyzed surface reactions.
The Risk: This approach to studying PETases using single-molecule kinetics is new and has yet to be accepted by the field. In addition, there’s no guarantee this approach will generate enzymes with significantly improved function.