Designer Genes

University Alumna Leads Groundbreaking Research In Plant Genetics

Texas Tech University Professor Thea Wilkins once translated Russian for U.S. Army intelligence. Difficult enough, but today she has an even more complex task – translating the function of genes in farm crops.leader of the largest cotton genome sequencing project in the world, she holds her university’s endowed Professor of Cotton Genomics chair.

Her work is taking on ever-greater importance as U.S. cotton production continues to rise in response to foreign demand and as many chemicals that enhance production are being outlawed. “The real challenge is that cotton breeding criteria have always been set for U.S. mills, and now we don’t have any mills,” said Wilkins. “They’ve all been located offshore. Everything is manufactured offshore and then shipped back in. We need to bring our fiber crops up to meet the textile demands for those mills, otherwise they’re going to start importing it from somewhere else. We don’t want that to happen.”

In recent decades, the demand for cotton has increased sharply, she said, with perhaps 200,000 acres in cultivation. “Now it’s up to a million-and-a-half,” Wilkins said. “There’s definitely been a comeback.” And, she added, Texas is the top producer of cotton in the U.S. West Texas – home to Lubbock and Texas Tech – produces one-fourth of all the cotton grown in the nation. “When I’m driving to work, I’ll pass a dozen or more cotton fields,” she said. “We’re right in the heart of cotton country.”

The work of Wilkins and her colleagues is setting the stage for cotton that is more drought tolerant and disease- and insect resistant. The best way to achieve those qualities was to painstakingly map the genome of the cotton plant and breed them into future crops. Genes contributing weak characteristics can be removed and those providing for stronger crops, she added.

Cotton has one of the longest, fastest growing cells in the plant kingdom. “In terms of fundamental plants, it makes an absolutely ideal single-celled model system,” said Wilkins. “We’re trying to kill two birds with one stone – understanding basic biology while uncovering aspects of the biology that has direct applications for agriculture and crop improvement.

“We’ve been doing gene discovery, trying associate genes with fiber development and how they would impact fiber quality,” she said. “That’s where it slowed down, and where I thought sequencing genomes would help us out – isolating one gene at a time. We can now move up a level where we are now looking at what actually controls fiber growth and development.”

A native of Tonawanda, N.Y., Wilkins, like many teens, was eager to leave her hometown. “I guess like all kids, I wanted to get away from home,” she said. She was a foreign language major at Buffalo State College, but when her brother joined the Army she learned that by enlisting she could attend foreign language school. “I ended up four years in the Army Security Agency as an intelligence analyst with a major in Russian. So, I saw the world and met my husband, who is from Georgia.”

When her hitch was done, she enrolled at Georgia Southern and found herself fascinated by biology. Wilkins went on to graduate summa cum laude, then earned a master’s in plant genetics and breeding at the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in plant cell and molecular biology at Michigan State University. She taught and researched for 15 years at the University of California-Davis, before Texas Tech came knocking six years ago.

“I can only say that my interest in learning and curiosity began at Georgia Southern,” said Wilkins. “There’s no doubt. We just had an excellent group of instructors that induced a love of plants. I remember Dr. Donald Drapalik in particular. He made plants interesting to all of us. Georgia Southern had small classes and we had people who were dedicated.

“They did a phenomenal job in imparting basic knowledge. When we left we knew that we were well-educated and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”