M.A. Saghai Maroof, professor of crop and soil environmental sciences, uses high-throughput microarray technology for disease-resistance gene discovery.
A robotic arrayer picks up fragments of DNA from wells and deposits thousands of gene segments in nano-scale drops onto common microscope slides. The slides are treated with fluorescently labeled plant molecules that attach a different color to each of the four chemical components of DNA. A Laser Scanner reads the slide and displays
its differential gene expression as different colors on a computer monitor.
The colors and their intensities tell researchers which genes are associated with resistance.
Saghai Maroof's laboratory has been selected by DuPont and the United Soybean Board as a Center of Excellence for Soybean Functional Genomic Research.