MU Scientists Fighting World Hunger

By Bobby Remis | MU Bond Life Sciences Center

Sanborn Field, University of Missouri | photo by Kyle Spradley

In the years to come, climate change and population growth will drastically alter the world around us, impacting farmland and the way we grow food.

Scott Peck, associate professor of biochemistry, studies how plants perceive and respond to changes in their environment.

New research from an interdisciplinary team at the University of Missouri is hoping to curb the decrease in food production due to climate change by studying the roots of corn and understanding its growth in these intense conditions.

Scott C. Peck — an investigator at the Bond Life Sciences Center — joins an interdisciplinary team that plans to study corn root growth in
drought conditions. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded them a $4.2 million grant to spend four years developing drought-tolerant corn varieties in an effort to sustain the 9 billion people estimated worldwide by 2050.

The interdisciplinary team is comprised of seven co-primary investigators from four MU colleges as well as the USDA-ARS.

Read the full release from Mizzou News.

Article originally published on Decoding Science.