Dr Peter Pauls Plant Agriculture University of Guelph "Bean breeding and genomics"

ABSTRACT: The bean breeding program at Guelph has undergone some significant changes in leadership in the last ten years, but throughout these transitions it has continued to be a productive source of new varieties of navy and coloured beans for Ontario producers. It has also served as a platform for innovative genetic research and HQP training. The structure of the

Guelph bean breeding program and its goals in developing high yielding, disease resistant and high quality beans will be discussed. The progress towards obtaining a complete genome sequence for OAC Rex, the first commercial common bacterial blight resistant bean, will be described. Results obtained from genetic studies of a number of traits, including disease resistance, seed coat colour, folate content and seed yield, will be discussed. The work illustrates that important insights can be gained from syntenic comparisons between bean and soybean.

Biography:

Dr. Pauls obtained his BSc from the University of Waterloo in Chemistry and Biology in 1976. He completed an MSc thesis on the membrane properties of an amoeba in 1978 at the University of Waterloo and a PhD on the biochemical and physical changes in plant membranes during senescence in 1981 in Waterloo. He had an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship to investigate lipid -
protein interactions in the Physics Dept at UBC for two years, and he became a faculty member in the Crop Science Department at the University of Guelph in 1983. He is currently the Chair of the Department of Plant Agriculture.  His research is focused on cellular and molecular studies of embryogenesis, pathogen-induced stress, agronomic trait expression in field crop plants, bean breeding, genomics and bioproducts. Peter has developed, with others, 32 dry bean varieties that have been supported for registration.