The OPUS award was created to recognize and further the efforts of those who gather, integrate and disseminate the knowledge from several research projects in the same scientific field. It values the synthesis of knowledge across scientific fields which is ultimately more useful to the scientific community at large. Recipients of the OPUS awards have made substantial strides in consolidating scientific knowledge and making it readily available to educators.
Professor Hood's work studied the plant fungus microbotryum as a model for sexually transmitted diseases in a population. According to his OPUS proposal, anther-smut-the plant disease caused by this fungus-is transmitted during host reproduction by pollinators, and is thus analogous to a sexually transmitted disease in a natural population.
This particular fungal pathogen is currently being studied in over 70 labs because of how it lends itself to experimentation and research. Professor Hood's OPUS award-winning synthesis is a project to collect research results on this pathogen from various sources and combine them into a book and interactive companion website which will act as a single source of readily accessible information. Teachers and students will be able to use the information as an easily understandable biological model for disease, population, genomics and evolution.
"The biological model that we study, a sexually transmitted disease of plants, involves a wonderful community of collaborators around the world. Our OPUS award will bring some of the key people together to collaborate on various chapters of the book," said Professor Hood. "The two of us [Hood and Antonovics] applied to the OPUS program as sort of a capstone to our working together and with the expectation that the effort will point the way to new and exciting research directions."
Professor Hood has researched the transmission of disease in natural populations, and how various genomic regions interact with reproductive strategy. Most of his current studies focus on the parasitic fungus Microbotryum violaceum, which causes anther-smut disease. Professor Hood came to the College this past fall after extensive post-doctoral work at Duke University and the University of Virginia.