Lincoln, Neb. —When Xiaoxi Meng and Zhikai Liang first proposed the idea a couple of years ago, James Schnable was skeptical. To say the least.
“‘Well, you can try, but I don’t think it’s going to work,’” the associate professor of agronomy and horticulture recalled saying to Meng and Liang, then postdoctoral researchers in Schnable’s lab at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
As researchers for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Food for Health Center, Andy Benson and Robert Hutkins are asking and answering questions about our second brain — the gut microbiome.
Using what they’ve learned in the laboratory, and the specialized strains of bacteria they developed, Benson and Hutkins, along with Nebraska animal scientist Tom Burkey and former Husker scientist Jens Walter, launched their own company to bring their research to the marketplace.
The plant breeders and geneticists I know all make the same joke, “We breed for three traits: yield, yield and yield”. The seeming hyperbole of this statement fades when you consider the traits improved in crops over the last thousand years. While we focus on disease or drought resistance, the trait we’re really talking about is yield. The work conducted to improve crop yield is truly amazing and must be continued; however, in the pursuit of yield, many traits related to food nutrition have been overlooked.
Welcome to Pocket Science: a glimpse at recent research from Husker scientists and engineers. For those who want to quickly learn the “What,” “So what” and “Now what” of Husker research.
Nebraska’s Jennifer Clarke, professor of food science and technology, will deliver a research talk, “The Venn Diagrams of Data Science” via Zoom at 4 p.m. Feb. 5.
Welcome to Pocket Science: a glimpse at recent research from Husker scientists and engineers. For those who want to quickly learn the “What,” “So what” and “Now what” of Husker research.
As appealing as the idea of a germ-free facility has become, Nebraska’s Amanda Ramer-Tait and her colleagues weren’t exactly anticipating a pandemic when they proposed it a few years ago.
The germs they focus on are bacterial, not viral, and more likely to help than harm. Besides, the facility isn’t designed to quarantine people — though the research conducted at the newly unveiled, nearly 10,000-square-foot Gnotobiotic Mouse Facility ultimately aims to benefit them.
David Richardson, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, visited the University of Nebraska–Lincoln on Dec. 18 to discuss the security and safety of the U.S. food system.
