History

A Wider Initiative

Recognizing the fact that Agriculture is Ohio's largest industry, the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences (FAES) and the College of Biological Sciences (CBS) have established an interdisciplinary group to exploit the expertise of the many scientists in both colleges that study basic plant molecular biology or focus their research in plant biotechnology. These scientists, including plant physiologists/biochemists and molecular/cellular biologists, as well as microbiologists and biochemists, all are very much a part of efforts to use molecular biology/biotechnology to answer fundamental questions related to plant growth, development, and metabolism. This interactive group, encompassing 30 scientists from seven different Departments from both the Columbus and Wooster campuses, was formed into an umbrella organization called the Plant Molecular Biology/Biotechnology (PMBB) Program. Individuals associated with the PMBB Program are supported by millions of dollars in federal grants (from NIH, DOE, NSF, USDA) and industrial sources, and there is state-wide research support for basic studies related to agriculture (see below). Because of the obvious potential benefits from such interdisciplinary efforts in the plant sciences, the University designated PMBB as a key component of a total initiative to enrich the molecular life sciences on campus, through a comprehensive Molecular Life Sciences (MLS) initiative. Over the last 5 years, five faculty were recruited to the PMBB Program using resources provided by the MLS initiative, while several additional faculty have recently been recruited via other means to add to the overall PMBB group. We are currently involved in a search for 2 additional PMBB faculty. Thus, PMBB has clearly become an important rallying point to build plant science and especially plant molecular biology at OSU. For those associated with the program, PMBB provides a focus to plant-related research efforts, enabling participating scientists to more effectively take advantage of potential interdisciplinary and collaborative research efforts. In addition, PMBB fosters interactions between basic and applied scientists to facilitate the transfer of laboratory technology to the field, and ultimately new products. This attitude is also reflective of novel programs for the training of students, as PMBB recently obtained Graduate School approval for a new interdisciplinary graduate program that will enable students to gain unfettered access to facets of plant research that are historically not covered under the rubric of a single department. This newly approved graduate program is the PMBB Graduate Specialty Program.

PMBB Program
The Ohio State University
704 Riffe Building
496 West 12th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1292
Phone: 614-247-6098
FAX: 614-292-6337

Webmaster: Eduardo Acosta