This award provides travel support for Paul Overvoorde (PI) and Rebecca Hoye (co-PI) to visit with Thomas Beeckman and other collaborators at the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), which is located in Ghent, Belgium. The planning visit is scheduled for early August of 2008. This planning grant will enable an expansion of an on-going collaboration between faculty members in the Biology and Chemistry departments at Macalester College, an exclusively undergraduate institution located in St. Paul, MN and members of the Plant Systems Biology Department at the VIB. The collaborative work uses chemical biology approaches to understand the regulation of root architecture though control of the cell cycle and the influence of the plant hormone auxin. The goals for this planning visit are to become familiar with facilities, personnel, and resources, to refine on-going research plans, and to plan a pair of proposals that would lead to the exchange of undergraduate students.
