WVU Biology Professor co-authors Milestone Study in Genome Research

Morgantown, WV, September 13, 2006:  Dr. Stephen DiFazio, assistant professor of Biology in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, has co-authored a milestone study in genome research that points to trees as the new biofuel.

The study, “The genome of black cottonwood, Populus trichocarpa (Torr. & Gray),” will be featured on the cover of tomorrow’s edition of Science and includes the first complete DNA sequence of a tree.

Populus trichocarpa, better known as the poplar tree, was chosen as a model crop for biofuel production due to its rapid growth and compact genome size.

A genome is the hereditary information encoded in an organism’s DNA. The poplar is one of the tallest broadleaf hardwood trees in the western United States and grows from the Pacific coast of San Diego to Alaska. The research team discovered 93 genes of the poplar associated with the production of cellulose, the building blocks of plant cell walls. Cellulose, the most abundant organic material on earth, can be broken down into sugar, fermented into alcohol, and distilled to produce fuel-quality ethanol.

The poplar project began in 2001 and has 108 co-authors from 40 institutions in 8 countries and 12 states. It supports a broader Department of Energy goal to research biofuel production under the Bush Administration’s Advanced Energy Initiative.

In addition to the advancements in biofuel production, the research team, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, identified more than 45,000 protein coding genes, more than any other sequenced organism. Even the human genome, which is six times larger than the poplar’s, has half as many protein-coding genes. The poplar is also the most complex genome to be sequenced and assembled by a single public sequencing facility.

According to assistant professor DiFazio, “the genome sequence is already having a profound impact on forest biotechnology research, greatly accelerating the discovery of genes that control many different aspects of forest tree biology and paving the way for marked improvements in forest plantation productivity that could rival those of the green revolution in agriculture.”

Dr. Stephen DiFazio earned his Ph.D. and M.S. from Oregon State University. Before joining the faculty of the WVU Department of Biology in 2005, he was a research scientist in the Environmental Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Recently he received the WVU Award for Research Team Scholarship for his study, “Mechanisms of Cadmium Tolerance in Poplar Trees.” His research interests are in plant genomics, molecular ecology, forest biotechnology, and plant reproductive biology. He currently teaches Molecular Ecology.

“I think the most far-reaching impacts of this research will be in the fields of ecology and environmental biology,” he continued, “since for the first time we now have, in our hands, the blueprint for understanding the intricacies of adaptation in an ecologically-dominant organism.”

For more information, please contact Dr. Stephen DiFazio at Stephen.Difazio@mail.wvu.edu. For an official version of the study, contact AAAS at scipak@aaas.org.

W-V-U