Scientists use greenhouse for ‘detective’ work

High above the concrete and clay of VCU’s Monroe Park Campus sits a reminder of the natural world.

Plants hanging in the greenhouse on the top floor of the Eugene P. and Lois E. Trani Center for Life Sciences building can be seen while standing on the street. This floor contains the pesticide-free room and three climate-controlled environments that house plant species from the desert, the tropical and the temperate climates.

One floor below this glass-walled greenhouse, visitors might find Fang-Sheng Wu, associate professor of genetic engineering, and Wan-Ling Chiu, a research scientist in plant molecular biology spending 10 to 14 hours daily researching these plants for different purposes.

Though people perhaps most often associate medical research with the use of animals for testing, Wu uses plants for a study that he said he hopes will aid in fighting cancer.

“Certain types of cancer cells have specific antigens — they are proteins,” he said, adding that after isolating a special antigen, it can be inserted into rabbits, and the rabbits will create an antibody to that antigen.

“The problem is that animal blood often contains viruses, so you can’t get the antibody without contamination.” “But if you can get a plant to work, you don’t have to worry about contamination.”

Now, Wu said scientists know plants can produce animal proteins and can replace animals in this process. In addition, people tend to associate fewer ethical and safety issues with plant research than with animal research.

“That’s why I see the potential in using a plant. There are too many limitations in animal cells. What animal cells can do, plant cells can do as well,” he said.

Chiu, however, uses plants to research their potential use as biological sensors for explosives like TNT.

“It’s like a detective kind of work,” she said. “We want a plant to change color and fluoresce when exposed to TNT.”

If this project succeeds, Chiu said, it possibly could be used to detect land mines. Land mines exist in at least 70 countries, killing or maiming 10,000 people each year, according to the U.N. Association of the U.S Adopt-A-Minefield campaign.

Besides minefields, plant research also finds its place in agriculture. By genetically engineering crops such as corn, Wu said, its quality of taste and resistance to diseases improves. Since these altered crops can be lethal to insects, Chiu suggested that the expansion of this practice eventually could eliminate using insecticides and herbicides on food.

“The insecticide will be left behind . . . and if it’s not washed well, you’re basically eating insecticides,” Wu said.

George Georges, a graduate student working toward a master’s degree in biology, said plant research also can help individuals understand their own biological compositions.

“Understanding the molecules of plants helps (people) understand the molecular complex, which can be applied to mammalian cells,” he said. Another plant researcher, Greg Plunkett, an associate professor of biology, travels around the world to conduct his research. Plunkett studies the relationship of different plants plus their geographical and evolutionary patterns.

This year he plans to visit China and Vietnam.

“I bring some of the (samples) back here to do my research and distribute some of the work to colleagues,” Plunkett said, citing South Africa, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia as some of the places he has gathered specimens.

Thomas Huff, vice provost for life sciences, said VCU plans to expand its involvement in plant research through The Inger and Walter Rice Center for Environmental Sciences. Once constructed on the north bank of the James River, he said, the center will be a nationally recognized-environmental facility offering a living laboratory for research.

Most research projects at VCU, Huff said, receive funding through competitively awarded grants. Besides the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he named the National Science and the National Geographic foundations as two other organizations contributing to such grants.

(Alex Truong, co-editor of the Harrisonburg High School newspaper, contributed to this story.)