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Texas Governor Perry Allocates $1.94 Million to Cotton Research at Texas Tech University Print
Governor Rick Perry has made prominence in the technology industry a high priority for the future of Texas, and through a grant from the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF), Texas Tech University is on the cutting edge of plant genomics research and development. Texas Tech received $1.94 million as the first superior research award from the Governor’s ETF program to develop the International Center for Excellence in Agricultural Genomics and Biotechnology. The ETF award was instrumental in recruiting renowned cotton researcher Dr. Thea Wilkins to head the newly created center at Tech. Texas Tech received $1.94 million as the first superior research award from the Governor’s ETF program to develop the International Center for Excellence in Agricultural Genomics and Biotechnology. The ETF award was instrumental in recruiting renowned cotton researcher Dr. Thea Wilkins to head the newly created center at Tech.  

Wilkins came to Tech from the University of California-Davis where she established herself as a world leader in cotton genomics research.

She was the first to receive a multi-million dollar National Science Foundation Plant Genome grant at UCDavis and the first to receive an award to study cotton genomics. Wilkins’ groundbreaking research program in this field has earned her recognition as the first to define the transcriptome of a single plant cell using cotton fibers. Her ongoing research focuses on the identification of genes that play major roles in determining important agronomic traits, such as yield and fiber quality, utilizing genomics.

Using biotechnology, she has pioneered efforts to generate cotton varieties with improved fiber quality, and has been issued two patents on bioengineering cotton fiber quality.

Wilkins brings her international expertise in cotton genomics and biotechnology to the cotton research team at Tech.

Dr. Magdy Alabady, a senior researcher on a joint U.S.-Egypt project funded by the USDA, conducted research alongside Wilkins at the University of California- Davis, and followed her to Tech to continue work on the project.

“In the scientific community, Thea is a star,” Alabady said. “Her career and her experience are both very impressive.”

As a leader in the international cotton community, Wilkins served on the Executive Steering Committee as a founding member of the International Cotton Genome Initiative (ICGI), and is a former Chair of the Functional Genomics Workgroup.

Governor Perry recognized Wilkins as the type of premier researcher the fund was created to attract to Texas. During his visit to the Tech campus to introduce her as the first recipient of the ETF superior research award, Perry focused on the economic impact of her research when he said the work Wilkins continues at Tech will lead to hundreds and possibly thousands of new Texas jobs.

Wilkins also came to Tech because of the opportunity to work closely with cotton researchers already situated there. The High Plains area is the largest contiguous cotton patch in the world, and it is home to the International Textile Center, as well as the largest group of cotton researchers in the U.S. For Wilkins, another reason to move her research to Lubbock was to be closer to growers who will be impacted by her research. She said she feels happy at the end of the day when she drives home from the lab on roads that travel between cotton fields.
 
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