• Title: Molecular Basis of Quantitative Trait Variation: Examples from Tomato
• Speaker: Dr. Steven D. Tanksley
• Date: January 31 from 3 to 4 PM in 2215 Williams Hall
  • Informal reception to follow
• Sponsors: Horticultural Sciences Graduate Student Association
  • University Graduate Student Association
  • Pi Alpha Xi
• More information: Jim Owen (jsowen@ncsu.edu) or Jessica Gaus (jlgaus@ncsu.edu)
• Seminar announcement to print and post (pdf)

About the Speaker, Steven Tanksley

Biography

Dr. Tanksley received a bachelor's degree in agronomy from Colorado State University in 1976 and a doctorate in genetics from the University of California at Davis in 1979. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1985 as an associate professor of plant breeding, was named a professor in 1994 and a Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the same year. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995, and is Chair of the Cornell Genomics Initiative Task Force.

The Cornell Genomics Initiative began in 1997 after informal discussions among faculty members concerning the future of the life sciences as genomics research opens up new intellectual opportunities. Many faculty members shared the excitement of knowing that we would soon witness the greatest era of discovery concerning life and life processes. At the same time, the faculty members shared the conviction that these discoveries would have profound effects on all of us -- both as scientists and as members of society.

To place Cornell in a leading position for genomics/life sciences research and education, the Cornell Genomics Initiative Task Force was formed. The Task Force has grown to more than 100 faculty members representing 25 departments and 6 colleges. In 1998, the Cornell administration adopted the Task Force's Cornell Genomics Initiative Plan. This dynamic plan involves the Ithaca campus (including the Boyce Thompson Institute and the USDA-ARS Center for Agricultural Bioinformatics) and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, with links to the Weill Medical College in New York City.

Dr. Tanksley’s laboratory is involved in three areas of research: First, identifying and isolating the key loci determining the size and shape of tomato fruit and which account for the evolutionary transition of wild plants bearing small, round berries to the large, variably shaped tomatoes associated with modern agriculture. Dr. Tanksley’s research aims to unravel the molecular and developmental processes underlying fruit development, to understand the molecular basis of quantitative trait variation and to determine whether these same genes control fruit development/evolution in other domesticated plants. They are also characterizing and cloning a locus involved in the control of stigma exsertion in wild and cultivated tomatoes and which was involved in the evolution of self-pollination.

The second aspect of Dr. Tanksley’s work is in comparative genomics and bioinformatics. He and his group are engaged in a project to identify and sequence the majority of the genes in tomato and other nightshade crops (e.g. eggplant, pepper, petunia, potato) and to use that information to understand how the gene content and gene order is evolving in plants over long periods of time.

Finally, Dr. Tanksley is developing and testing new breeding methodologies based on molecular marker technology – especially techniques directed at the identification and utilization of novel genetic variation found in the wild ancestors of crop plants.

Selected Publications

• Doganlar, S., A. Frary, M.-C. Daunay, R. N. Lester, and S. D. Tanksley. 2002. A Comparative Genetic Linkage Map of Eggplant (Solanum melongena ) and its Implications for Genome Evolution in the Solanaceae. Genetics 161: 1697-1711.
• Liu, J., J. Van Eck, B. Cong, and S. D. Tanksley. 2002. A new class of regulatory genes underlying the cause of pear-shaped tomato fruit. PNAS 99: 13302-13306.
• Van der Hoeven, R., C. Ronning, J. J. Giovannoni, G. Martin, and S. D. Tanksley. 2002. Deductions about the number, organization and evolution of genes in the tomato genome based on analysis of a large EST collection and selective genomic sequencing. Plant Cell 14: 1441-1456.
• Lippman, Z. and S. D. Tanksley. 2001. Dissecting the genetic pathway to extreme fruit size in tomato using a cross between the small-fruited wild species L. pimpinellifolium and L. esculentum var.‘Giant Heirloom’. Genetics 158:413-422.
• Frary, A., T.C. Nesbitt, A. Frary, S. Grandillo, E. van der Knaap, B. Cong, J. Liu, J. Meller, R. Elber, K. Alpert, and S. D. Tanksley. 2000. Cloning and Transgenic Expression of fw2.2: a Quantitative Trait Locus Key to the Evolution of Tomato Fruit. Science 289:85-87.
• Ku, H.-M., T. Vision, J. Liu, and S. D. Tanksley. 2000. Comparing Sequenced Segments of the Tomato and Arabidopsis Genomes: Large-Scale Duplication Followed by Selective Gene Loss Creates a Network of Synteny. PNAS 97: 9121-9126.
• Vision, T., D. Brown, and S. D. Tanksley. 2000. The origins of genomic duplications in Arabidopsis. Science 290:2114-2117.
• Tanksley, S. D. and S. R. McCouch. 1997. Seed banks and molecular maps: unlocking genetic potential from the wild. Science 277:1063-1066.

Other Pertinent Information

"NSF Awards Cornell $6.5 Million for Research for Genetic Improvements"

"Cornell's Tanksley wins prestigious 1998 Humboldt Award"

"Cornell plant breeder Steven Tanksley is the co-recipient of the international Wolf Foundation Prize"