PI: Crispin Taylor [American Association of Plant Biologists (ASPB)]
CoPIs: Leon V. Kochian (USDA-ARS/Cornell University), Jurandir Magalhaes (Embrapa Maize and Sorghum, Brasilia, Brazil), and George N. Ude (Bowie State University)
A workshop to broaden participation and strengthen linkages between African and US scientists will be held at the ASPB 2012 Annual Meeting July 20-24, 2012 in Austin, TX. Funding provided by NSF will support activities that involve participation of eight crop scientists from East and West Africa who attended "New Tools for Molecular Breeding", an ASPB workshop held November 15-18, 2011, on at the BioSciences of East and Central Africa (BECA) hub in Nairobi, Kenya. Sponsored by the ASPB International Committee, with assistance from the CGIAR Generation Challenge Program (GCP), and in collaboration with the African Crop Science Society and the International Society of African Bioscientists and Biotechnologists, the "New Tools for Molecular Breeding" workshop provided training to African crop scientists on the use of molecular markers and new genotyping strategies for plant breeding and genetic diversity assessment. The activities planned for the workshop at ASPB 2012 that include plenary talks from Africa- and US-based scientists, brief scientific presentations from participants, and round table discussions will build upon the activities of the BecA workshop and provide excellent new opportunities for networking and setting up meaningful collaborations between the African participants and interested US plant biologists.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE This NSF Grant allowed us to hold a workshop entitled "Building Links between North American Plant Biologists and Crop Scientists from Sub-Saharan Africa" at the 2012 American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) annual meeting in Austin. We brought seven plant scientists from sub-Saharan Africa selected from 19 African scientists who had attended a previous molecular breeding training workshop ASPB ran in Nairobi, Kenya in November of 2011. The African attendees at the 2012 workshop were: Richard Akinwale (Obafemi Awololo Univ., Nigeria), Lucky Omoigui (Univ. of Makurdi, Nigeria), Paul Asare (Univ. of Cape Coast, Ghana), Dramane Sako (West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, Ghana), Sikirat Remi Akande (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria), David Igwe (IITA and Univ of Ibadan, Nigeria), and Marian Quain (Crops Research Institute, CSIR, Ghana). Also, more than 50 invited ASPB members attended, as well as representatives from NSF, USDA-NIFA and all three ASPB Presidents (past, current and incoming). The workshop had two plenary speakers. Dr. Remi Akande talked on "Collaboration between US and African Scientists: Challenges and Opportunities". She discussed the economic and societal problems in Africa and how these impact the ability to conduct scientific research. She emphasized that the same general problems exist for both research and life in general in Africa: lack of funds, poor infrastructure, and lack of well-educated and trained scientists and support personnel. She emphasized the need to collaborate with ASPB scientists for training, and capacity building. The second plenary talk was by Scott Jackson, University of Georgia, entitled "International Engagement in Plant Sciences". Dr. Jackson discussed his experiences in conducting translational genomics research in collaboration with African scientists. He discussed how the culture in universities is often contradictory to what scientists have to do to set up effective collaborations in Africa. Subsequently, the African scientist and 7 ASPB members gave 5-minute summaries of their research activities. The ASPB speakers were chosen because they had experience conducting collaborative research with developing countries. Most of the speakers were involved in BREAD and Gates Foundation projects. The ASPB presentations were: Janet Braam (Rice Univ, USA): "Daily light promotes pest resistance"; Julia Bailey-Serres (UC Riverside, USA): "Flooding survival strategies"; Steve Huber (USDA-ARS, USA): "Soybean Seed Composition: Possible implications for human nutrition"; Danny Schnell (Univ Mass, USA): "Increasing seed oil production by increasing CO2 capture"; Sally Mackenzie (Univ Nebraska, USA): "Epigenomic approaches to crop breeding"; Michelle Cilia (USDA-ARS, USA): "NSF BREAD: Novel biomarkers that rapidly identify insect populations that are efficient vectors of circulative plant viruses"; and Peggy Lemaux (UC Berkeley, USA): "Using genetic engineering to improve sorghum’s nutritional quality". A round table open discussion followed, that was very productive. A number of key issues in research and collaboration in Africa were identified. These were: 1) The unavailability of credit cards, which affects everything from ordering supplies and reagents to being able to sign up for memberships (such as ASPB) and make travel reservations. 2) The difficulties in getting reagents and supplies to African countries. Companies are unwilling to ship to places such as Nigeria, and often the shipping costs exceed the cost of the order itself. Scientists must make special arrangements with companies that have branches in the US, UK or South Africa. 3) Laboratory equipment, when available, is difficult to maintain and repair, and there is a lack of trained technicians to use the equipment. 4) ASPB members emphasized that it is difficult to know who or how to contact in Africa, for example if they do have areas of collaboration open or post-doctoral positions available. Our major outcome from this workshop was the basic information we gathered to begin to build a US-Africa network of scientists to facilitate research collaborations and teaching and mentoring opportunities. This network is now up on the ASPB web site as the African Scientist Networking Interest Group, based on the contact information for the attendees of the 2012 workshop, along with the numerous African and US scientists who did not attend the workshop but contacted us to express a keen interest in our efforts. We are currently reaching out to African agricultural scientists to build their membership in this ASPB Interest Group. Subsequently we will do the same with regards to recruiting US ASPB members and then we will gather information from each member of this Interest Group including Research Program and Areas of Expertise, Expectations from the Interest Group, and Description what each members has to offer. This will allow us to generate an information database linked to the African Scientist Networking Interest Group that each member can access to look for colleagues to interact and possibly collaborate with. Subsequently, we will use the Interest Group web page as a forum to share ideas, build linkages, and develop new activities bringing together African and US scientists.
