|
|  |
Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >
Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences
Expertise: endangered, native non-crop species
Bio:
Barbara A. Schaal's reserach investigates the evolutionary process within plant populations using a wide variety of techniques, from field observations to quantitative genetics and molecular biology. Schaal has studied hosts of plant species ranging from oak trees to Mead's milkweed, a midwestern prairie plant. Her recent work has turned to wild relatives of crop species, such as cassave, a major subistence crop of the tropics. She is known for applying molecular genetic techniques to the study of plant evolution. Current projects in her lab, many in collaboration with researchers from the Missouri Botanical Garden, span the range from molecular evolution of specific DNA sequences to higher level systematics and analysis of developmental patterns. Schaal was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, in 1999, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, she serves on the board of trustees of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences and the Missouri Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. She has been associate editor of the journals Molecular Biology and Evolution, The American Journal of Botany, Molecular Ecology, and Conservation Genetics. She was president of the Botanical Society of American in 1995-96.
WUSTL Contact Information:
|
| Address: | One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1137
St. Louis, MO 63130
|
|
|
Education:
-
B.S. in Biology at University of Illinois at Chicago
-
M.Ph. in Biology at Yale University
-
Ph.D. in Biology at Yale University
| News Stories & Tip Sheets: |
Showing 5 Stories.
|
|
Crop mimic
Biologists examine candidate genes of rice and red rice
Dec. 14,
2006 --
 |
| Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL Photo |
| Kenneth Olsen, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, examines a cultivated rice plant in the Goldfarb Greenhouse. |
Download
|
Red rice sounds like a New Orleans dish or a San Francisco treat. But it's a weed, the biggest nuisance to American rice growers, who are the fourth largest exporters of rice in the world. And rice farmers hate the pest, which, if harvested along with domesticated rice, reduces marketability and contaminates seed stocks. Complicating matters is the fact that red rice and cultivated rice are exactly the same species, so an herbicide cannot be developed that seeks out only red rice. It would kill cultivated rice, too. But now a plant evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $1.12 million for two years to perform genetic studies on red rice to understand molecular differences between the two that someday could provide the basis for a plan to eradicate the weed. More...
|
Those wild ancestors
Schaal and collaborators locate rice domestication using DNA
Sept. 7,
2006 --
 |
| Photo courtesy USDA |
| Schaal rice one. |
Biologists from Washington University in St. Louis and their collaborators from Taiwan have examined the DNA sequence family tree of rice varieties and have determined that the crop was domesticated independently at least twice in various Asian locales. Jason Londo, Washington University in Arts & Sciences biology doctoral candidate, and his adviser, Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., Washington University Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, ran genetic tests of more than 300 types of rice, including both wild and domesticated, and found genetic markers that reveal the two major rice types grown today were first grown by humans in India and Myanmar and Thailand (Oryza sativa indica) and in areas in southern China (Oryza sativa japonica). More...
|
Buyer beware
Herbs can pose health problems, plant biologist warns
May 4,
2006 --
 |
| David Kilper/WUSTL Photo |
| Memory Elvin-Lewis in the Goldfarb Greenhouse inspects a kava plant. Elvin-Lewis has written a chapter in a new book that is critical of the unregulated U.S. herbal trade. |
|
Download
|
Ginsengs, echinaceas, and ephedras, oh my! These herbs sound innocuous enough, however, according to Memory Elvin-Lewis, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and ethnobotany in biomedicine in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, Americans are unaware of the dangers inherent in these herbal supplements. More...
|
Barbara Schaal elected VP of NAS
Professor is first woman elected vice president of National Academy of Sciences
Feb. 11,
2005 --
 |
| Schaal |
Members of the National Academy of Sciences have elected Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., vice president of the Academy. Schaal is Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences in biology at Washington University in St. Louis. With her election, Schaal becomes the first woman ever elected vice president of the Academy.
|
More science, less fear
Plant biologist says to assess genetically modified agriculture by scientific models
May 7,
2003 --
 |
| Eighty percent of the United States soybean crop is genetically modified (GM). |
|
Download
|
The clear, cold logic of science is the only approach that can take the hysteria out of the hot debate over genetically modified (GM) crops, says a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Barbara Schaal, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, told an international gathering of biotechnology researchers at Washington University that GM crops need more close scrutiny and less fear.
|
Showing 5 Stories.
|
|
| Clips: |
Showing 2 Clips.
|
|
Evolution Book Sees No Science-Religion Gap
The New York Times
and 6 others
Jan. 4,
2008 -- In 1984 and again in 1999, the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most eminent scientific organization, produced books on the evidence supporting the theory of evolution and arguing against the introduction of creationism or other religious alternatives in public school science classes. Barbara A. Schaal, a vice president of the academy and an evolutionary biologist at WUSTL, comments on the third volume recently published.
|
Rice Cultivation Began in Multiple Asian Locations, Study Says
Bloomberg News
June 6,
2006 -- Rice, a staple that has fed more people than any other crop since humans began cultivating it about 9,000 years ago, was independently domesticated at least twice in different parts of Asia, a new study says. "Humans had a very good idea -- let's cultivate rice -- and it happened on more than one occasion,'' said Barbara A. Schaal, a biology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who published the study with scientists from Taiwan.
|
|
| |
|
Email this page
Print ready page