BY LENDER C. DOMINGO
ILOCOS NORTE (May 20)—A university mentor here has been selected as ambassador of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), an international professional society devoted to the advancement of plant science research and education.
Peter James Icalia Gann, an assistant professor of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) College of Agriculture, Food and Sustainable Development (CAFSD) will have a term of two years as ASPB ambassador.
Founded in 1924, ASPB promotes the growth and development of plant biology, encourages and publishes research in plant biology, and advances the interests, growth and education of plant scientists in general.
Over the decades, the ASPB has evolved and expanded to provide a forum for molecular and cellular biology as well as to serve the basic interests of plant science.
It publishes three world-class journals including the highly cited and respected journals Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell, and organizes conferences and other educational activities that are key to the advancement of science.
According to Daniel Tapaoan Jr., MMSU assistant information officer, Gann is among the few graduate students and early-career professionals from around the world selected as ambassadors of the ASPB.
“As an ambassador, Gann enjoys free participation in the ASPB conferences and funding grants for his research projects, and represents the organization in various activities,” Tapaoan said.
Gann is currently taking up a doctoral degree in cell and molecular biology at the University of Arkansas in the United States (US) since 2018 as a grantee of the Fulbright-Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) scholarship program.
Tapaoan said Gann was nominated by his two mentors at the University of Arkansas and prepared the necessary documents for evaluation for the ASPB ambassadorship. He was then selected by the society based on his performance and potentials as leader in the field of plant biology.
At the University of Arkansas, Gann currently works with professors Vibha Srivastava and Paul Allen Counce from the university’s Bumpers College’s Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, and retired professor Betty Martin, also from the university’s Institute of Nanoscience and Engineering in the College of Engineering.
Tapaoan said the MMSU-CAFSD mentor embarks on a research about the starch biosynthetic process in rice, analyzing its gene function and is controlling it through gene editing to improve rice grain quality.
In January of this year, Gann joined the University of Arkansas’ three-minute thesis competition where he presented a portion of his research work and won first place in the interdisciplinary category.