According to a study done by Michigan State University, the per capita farmable land worldwide was 0.42 hectares in 1960. It will be 0.19 hectares in 2050. We, however, are dependent on seed crops and farming. We need a superhero seed that can grow faster, bigger, better, and all with less space. To get to this seed, we need to learn about the building blocks - the DNA - that enable the building of a seed and in turn, a plant. Join us in hearing about the future of food from Dr. Robert Goldberg, a professor at UCLA, in our final episode of our second series of ‘The Dish on Biotech In Food'' on BCLA’s podcast, Inside Biotech.
More About Professor Goldberg: Bob Goldberg is a plant molecular biologist who specializes in the area of plant genomics. The goal of his research has been to understand how plant cells differentiate and how genes are activated selectively in specialized cell types during plant development. Professor Goldberg's research has provided a conceptual foundation for the processes that regulate gene expression in higher plants. In collaboration with others, he utilized genes identified in his laboratory to develop a novel system to genetically engineer for male fertility control in crop plants. This system was used to develop new hybrid varieties of canola plants that have significantly increased yields of oil. His current research is using state-of-the-art genomics technologies to identify all of the genes required to make a seed. Professor Goldberg received a B.S. in Botany at Ohio University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Plant Genetics from The University of Arizona. Professor Goldberg was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology and joined the UCLA faculty in 1976. Professor Goldberg served twice as Director of the Plant Genetics Program at the USDA, has been on the Editorial Boards of many internationally recognized journals such as Science, and was the Founding Editor and Editor-In-Chief of The Plant Cell, the leading journal in the area of plant molecular biology. He has been the organizer of many major international plant molecular biology meetings, is the Director of The Seed Institute - an intercampus institute without walls within the University of California dedicated to unraveling the processes that control seed development. Professor Goldberg has given hundreds of lectures on his research world-wide, and has received several awards recognizing his contributions to the field of plant molecular biology. These include election to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Order for Scientific Merit from the President of Brazil, being named as a UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer, and being listed as making one of the "top 15" Discoveries in UCLA's 75-year history. Professor Goldberg is highly committed to undergraduate and graduate education and is an "expert" in making science "come alive." Professor Goldberg has received Distinguished Teaching Awards from the Department of Biology and the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, and was awarded the Luckmann Distinguished Teaching Award from the Academic Senate. He has also been awarded the Gold Shield Prize for Excellence in Research and Undergraduate Education by the Academic Senate and was named as one of the "top 20" Professors in UCLA's 75-year history. Recently, Professor Goldberg was awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute University Professorship with the goal of expanding undergraduate opportunities in discovery-oriented research.
To learn more, you can visit: https://research.mcdb.ucla.edu/Goldberg/index.htm