Supported through a three-year seed grant from Fralin Life Sciences Institute, a group of 14 interdisciplinary researchers led by Peter Vikesland will develop wireless sensor networks to survey microbial threats to water quality. Photo by Ryan Young for Virginia Tech.
Atop a new wave of support from the Fralin Life Sciences Institute, Peter Vikesland, the Nick Prillaman Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is leading a research team in creating wireless sensor networks to survey microbial threats to water quality and to enable operational control and provide real-world feedback for public transparency. The project, Technology-enabled Water Surveillance and Control, reflects the “one water” concept that views water quality as important to our society, economy, and environment and requires an integrated approach to policy planning and implementation.
Lenwood Heath, professor of computer science and core faculty at the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, will develop algorithms for locating sensors and designing networks for optimal benefit. Read full story here.
Lenwood Heath, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and core faculty at the Sanghani Center, is part of a team that recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for its plant genome research project, “Unraveling the origin of vegetative desiccation tolerance in vascular plants collaborators.” Heath is collaborating with colleagues from Texas Tech University and the University of Nevada, Reno on the study.
Excessive water loss is lethal for most plants, but a minority of plants (known as resurrection plants) have a remarkable ability to survive almost complete dryness, said Heath. This ability, known as desiccation tolerance, relies upon a combination of physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses that allow the plant to preserve cell integrity in the dry state.
“In the context of climate change,” Heath said, “we feel it is important to understand how plants respond to drying out and especially important to develop the science that will allow crops to better tolerate drought.”
“It is believed that this resurrection capability depends on genes that are in all plants but lost by most over evolutionary times,” Heath said. “The aim of our project is to discover the essential differences in genetic responses between resurrection plants and drought-sensitive plants so that crops can be re-engineered to be more drought tolerant.”
In addition to sophisticated biological experiments to measure gene response in the two kinds of plants, the project will employ machine learning techniques, led by Heath, to construct gene regulatory networks (GRNs) for comparative study.
The grant will provide learning and professional opportunities to graduate students and postdocs at the three universities. Jingyi Zhang, a Ph.D. computer science student advised by Heath, will work with him on the project.
Long-term goals for the project include promoting conservation programs for resurrection species; providing diverse scientific workforce training and outreach activities to first-generation students and the general public; and increasing public awareness about the importance of vegetative desiccation tolerance to future crop breeding in order to tackle the effects of climate change.
Lenwood Heath, a professor of computer science and faculty member of DAC is of a part group of faculty members at Virginia Tech awarded a five-year $3.6 million Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is aimed at mitigating the global threat of antibiotic resistance spread through the contact or consumption of contaminated water. Disease free water is a global health challenge that commands an international team effort. To read more about this project click here.
Lenwood Heath, DAC faculty member, is working with Boris Vinatzer, associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences who has developed a new way to classify and name organisms based on their genome sequence and in doing so created a universal language that scientists can use to communicate with unprecedented specificity about all life on Earth. Heath oversaw the development of the bioinformatic pipeline to implement the system. He was interested in collaborating with Vinatzer because of the potential to empower scientists to communicate accurately with one another about biological systems. To read more about their collaboration click here.
