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A Cornell University plant geneticist will visit West Virginia University on Tuesday, April 17, to meet with faculty and students from WVU’s genetics and developmental biology program. Jeffrey J. Doyle, professor of plant biology and plant breeding and genetics in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will speak on “Polyploidy and the evolution of soybean and its allies” at 2 p.m. Tuesday in room 1001 of the Agricultural Sciences Building.

Doyle’s work is primarily focused on whole genome duplication, and his work in this area involves comparative genomics of polyploid species, species with more than two copies of each chromosome type, as opposed to the expected matched pair of homologous chromosomes. Most of this work involves the large and economically important legume family, where projects include studies addressing the origin of symbiotic nitrogen fixation and the study of gene families involved in cell wall synthesis, aimed at developing alfalfa (a polyploid) as a biofuels crop. Soybean and its wild relatives have been the focus of much work, developing the latter into a model system for studying natural allopolyploidy.

Doyle’s visit is sponsored by the Genetics and Developmental Biology program in the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences of the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design. For additional information, please contact Jed Doelling, associate professor of genetics, at 304-293-2815 or jed.doelling@mail.wvu.edu.