Engineer Builds Instrument to Study Effects of Genes and Environment on Plant Traits

Liang Dong, Iowa State University (ISU) professor of electrical and computer engineering leads a research team in developing an accessible instrument with the scale, flexibility and resolution needed to study how genes and environmental conditions affect plant traits. His idea is a greenhouse on a chip – an instrument that incorporates miniature greenhouses, microfluidic technologies that precisely control growing conditions and big data tools that help analyze plant information.

"We are building resources to benefit plant biology researchers and hopefully the new instrumentation will create a paradigm shift in the plant phenomics area by placing powerful data analysis capability in the hands of researchers," Dong said. The project started nearly two years ago, and to date, Dong and his research team have been building the necessary components for a phenotyping instrument. They are working to integrate the parts and pieces into a complete, flexible system that can handle a variety of research projects.

For more details, read the ISU news release at http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2014/03/25/planttraitsinstrument.