Growing the future
The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is an engine of scientific discovery, with researchers working across the spectrum of agricultural and life sciences. Academically, the college offers research-based, hands-on teaching of undergraduates; world-class graduate programs rich in research and project assistantships; and short courses, workshops and other programs. Our outreach activities bring the work of the college to Wisconsin businesses, organizations and communities throughout the state. Learn more about CALS.
Events
- Sep 30
- 12:00 PM Harvest Folk Festival Celebrate 'Seeds of Change'
Explore
We’re helping ourselves by generating ‘ideal’ biomass plants for production and harvest, and we’re helping the plants by introducing resistance to stresses or diseases that makes it easier for them to grow.
CALS Faces
Nancy Reichert
Nancy Reichert BS’79 found her love of plants as a child when she played in the forest at her grandparents’ dairy farm. After graduating from UW–Madison, John Kemp, then a professor of plant pathology, asked her to work as a lab technician at Agrigenetics Advanced Research Lab, a small start-up company where researchers were racing to perfect gene-transfer technology. Reichert went on to earn a PhD from New Mexico State University and is now a professor at Mississippi State University. There she studies miscanthus, a sun-loving, reedy grass that has the potential to become a go-to plant for biofuel and carbon sequestration. She and a team of researchers unlocked the perennial’s potential by editing miscanthus genes to knock out or change their function. New genes that make further beneficial modifications can now be inserted at precise points in the miscanthus genome. Read more: go.wisc.edu/a3f0a8