Travel Award Recipients
About Eric Olson
2012 Sarachek Scientific Travel Award Recipient
Eric Leonard Olson is a doctoral candidate in Genetics working with Dr. Bikram Gill in the Wheat Genetic and Genomic Resources Center and Dr. Jesse Poland in the USDA-ARS Hard Winter Wheat Genetic Research Unit. The goal of Eric’s PhD work is to transfer and map genes for resistance to the highly virulent Ug99 wheat stem rust races from the wild wheat relative species, Aegilops tauschii, to elite winter wheat germplasm. He has transferred Ug99 resistance genes from ten different Ae. tauschii genotypes and three novel genes have been closely mapped to discrete chromosome locations.
In collaboration with USDA-ARS and K-State scientists, Eric has published four papers on Ug99 stem rust resistance in elite and exotic wheat germplasm and has manuscripts in preparation on Ug99 stem rust resistance genes from Ae. tauschii. Eric holds a M.S. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
The Sarachek Scientific Travel Award will fund travel to Njoro, Kenya, where the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and CIMMYT operate an international Ug99 stem rust disease nursery. In Njoro, Eric will meet with stem rust workers from across the globe and evaluate new Ae. tauschii-derived stem rust resistance genes under heavy disease pressure in the field.
About Vijayalakshmi Iyer
2012 Sarachek Scientific Travel Award Recipient
Vijayalakshmi S Iyer is a doctoral candidate in microbiology working with Dr. Lynn
Hancock in the Division of Biology. She studies the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, which is a leading cause of hospital acquired infections. Her project involves understanding
the contribution of a transcription regulator, RpoN, in enterococcal metabolism, biofilm
development and virulence. In a recent article published in the Journal of bacteriology,
Vijaya has shown that in E.faecalis, RpoN regulates autloysis and promotes proteinaceous biofilms. Her second manuscript
describing the contribution of RpoN to enterococcal endocarditis is in preparation.
Vijaya received her B.S. in Microbiology and Biochemistry from K.J.Somaiya College of Science & Commerce, University of Mumbai, India and holds a M.Tech in Biotechnology from Dr. D.Y.Patil Institute for Biotechnology And Bioinformatics, Navi Mumbai, India.
The Sarachek Travel Award will be used to attend the 6th annual conference on Biofilms organized by the American Society for Microbiology to be held in Miami, Florida. She will present her work at the conference to the experts in the field and will have the opportunity to network with professionals in biofilm research, an area in which she would like to pursue as her research career.