January 2011

Table of Contents

PLANT RESEARCH

Use of Mutant-assisted Gene Identification and Characterization (MAGIC) to Identify Useful Alleles for Crop Improvement
Peter Balint-Kurti and Guri Johal
Most important crop traits are controlled by many genes with quantitative effects. While individually these genes can have rather small effects, cumulatively their effects can be profound and very useful in agriculture. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, which has been extremely effective in identifying and mapping these loci, has several limitations. We have developed a new approach we call MAGIC. The main concept is that small effects of a trait are difficult to observe against a background in which the trait is within "normal" parameters. If, however, one alters the background level of the trait so that it is now at extreme levels, some previously-invisible variation may now be measurable.

Manipulating ABA Signaling to Quench Thirsty Plants
Francis C. Peterson, George N. Phillips Jr., and Brian F. Volkman
The critical role of ABA in stress physiology has sparked intense interest in understanding and manipulating ABA signaling. Exogenous application of ABA or its analogs to plants in the field improves water use efficiency, and crop plants engineered to have increased ABA sensitivity show improved yield under drought conditions. This article summarizes the current understanding of ABA signaling and the pathways to modulate ABA signaling to meet the goals of the "Blue Revolution."

REGULATORY NEWS

Courts Ponder Questions about Inventorship
Phillip Jones
The United States has patent laws that focus on the inventor, rather than the inventor's institution, and grants a patent to an inventor who owns rights in the patent, unless the inventor has assigned those rights. The emphasis on inventors has fertilized a field of rules and tests for determining inventorship. University of Pittsburg v. Hedrick provided the Federal Circuit an opportunity to explore a thorny aspect of joint inventorship: Does a scientist become a joint inventor by proving that another scientist's idea actually works? Stanford v. Roche blossomed from a simple question about inventor contracts (and a warning for university tech transfer departments) to the possibility that the Bayh-Dole Act rewrites patent law so that institutions, not inventors, hold first patent rights.
 

Website: http://www.isb.vt.edu

Published: January 7, 2011