December 07, 2011
Dianella
Howarth, Ph.D., Assistant
Professor,
Department of Biological Sciences, was recently awarded a major
grant from the National Science
Foundation (NSF) to conduct research based on her
abstract,
The Role of Gene Duplication in the Floral Symmetry in
Dipsacales.
The grant, which is worth $550,000, is a first for
Dr. Howarth, who has been interested in plant evolution ever since
she was a child. “My parents are both scientists, so I was always
exposed to evolution and things of that nature,” said Dr. Howarth,
a native of Hawaii. “I actually started with science fairs in
seventh grade. I soaked fruit in waters and discovered that it
could survive — even after floating in salt water.”
Dr. Howarth’s project uses Dipsacales (which includes honeysuckle)
to examine the genetic basis of evolutionary shifts in flower
symmetry. “Some flowers have nice little bells where all the petals
are the same and some are more complicated,” she explained. “I look
at floral symmetry – how a flower is going to be shaped – and the
genes that control that shift.”
“The main idea is to understand gene use,” she said. “If we
understand what exactly the genes are doing, then the sky’s the
limit in terms of what we can do and what kinds of flowers we can
make.”
Dr. Howarth submitted revisions to her winning proposal while
visiting her parents in Hawaii and then began the stressful process
of waiting for a response from the NSF. “Typically, you hear
sometime in mid-May for a January submission at around 10 o’clock
at night,” she said. “So, for about a month, I’d sit at my computer
at 9:50 p.m. waiting to hear. Finally, after stressing out, I
called the program director and he called me back.”
The sizable grant includes money for supplies and research
materials. It also includes funding for the lab’s most precious
resource — people. “I really depend on the people in my lab,” said
Dr. Howarth, who will be adding two undergraduates and a
post-doctoral candidate to her staff. “The work of my students and
the data they compiled played a significant role in my
research. They made this grant possible.”
Dr. Howarth, who earned her doctoral degree at Harvard University
and did her post doctoral work at Yale University, is impressed by
the students at St. John’s and has a particular fondness for her
current class. “This semester, I’m thrilled with the crop I have in
my intro to bio ecology evolution course,” she said. “The thoughts
they have are so novel. They approach problems and questions in
ways that I can’t even imagine.”
Next for Dr. Howarth is a return to her Hawaiian roots, as she will
be studying Hawaiian plant flora in her Queens campus lab. “I’m
really interested in Hawaiian biogeography and evolution,” she
said. “I like to keep my toes in Hawaii.”