2. USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture Grant created to fund late blight control Caused by Phytophthora infestans Species of Oomycete (water molds)

3. P. infestans: Late Blight Irish potato famine of the mid 1800's Killed 1.5 million Irish Almost as many left Ireland Extensively studied by Anton DeBary Considered one of the fathering diseases of plant pathology

4. Modern Relevance Still causes over $6 billion dollars in USA losses alone Very few effective methods of treatment Only takes 15 days to decimate a field after noticeable symptoms appear Requires extensive fungicide use to control

5. What Is My Project? Create a smallRNA database for the public Expanded to include P. sojae, a soy bean pathogen This database can be used as a tool – Pathogen control through smallRNAs

6. smallRNA? Broad classification of RNAs that cause RNA interference, most frequently through silencing - Small pieces of RNA bind to target mRNA and block its translation - Different types have differing levels of complementarity Recent focus on microRNA

7. Uses of microRNA Extremely powerful research tool - Can completely silence an undesired gene - As this technology develops, fewer off-targets are being affected, leading to a more customizable tool Disease treatment - Allows drug-induced gene silencing miRNA placed in drug which silences a gene necessary for pathogen survival Eliminates pathogen!

8. USDA Goals and My Project Late blight control is the ultimate goal Easily accessible smallRNA data will facilitate this control Other institutions funded by the same grant are focusing more on treatment methods - They will use the data we have organized

9. Front End

10. Data Tables

11. GBrowse Generic Genome Browse

12. Creating miRNA

13. My Co-worker Deepthika Ennamuri works on the data-end of the project - “Back-end” - Uses Perl scripts to analyze data and get it into a format usable by Gbrowse Compared to my work: - “Front-end” - Make database easily available

14. Acknowledgments USDA – National Institute of Food and Agriculture NSF – Research Experience for Undergraduates Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Kevin Ahern Coworker: Deepthika Ennamuri Horticulture Research Crops Laboratory – Niklaus Grunwald (sponsoring professor) – Stephanie Bollmann Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing – Josh Cuperus – Christopher Sullivan