US scientist Michael Gore bags 2022 Cotton Genetics Research Award

Gore, who was selected by the Joint Cotton Breeding Committee, received a plaque and a monetary award, National Cotton Council (NCC) said in a press release.

The annual Cotton Genetics Research Award was established in 1961 by U.S. commercial cotton breeders to recognise and encourage basic research in cotton genetics, cytogenetics, and breeding. It is administered by the Joint Cotton Breeding Committee consisting of representatives of the NCC, the USDA, state experiment stations, Cotton Incorporated, and commercial breeders.

Gore’s ground-breaking cotton genetics research has had a lasting impact on the cotton breeding and genetics community and beyond, said SIPS Director Dr Jocelyn Rose and one of Dr Gore’s nominators. She said that he has an innate passion for genetically improving crops through the large-scale identification of causal genes and the development of predictive models that are now being collaboratively used by breeders to accelerate the breeding process.

Specific to cotton, Dr Rose said Dr Gore’s research supported efforts to transfer the superior fibre traits of pima cotton to higher yielding upland cotton. She noted that among other achievements, he has helped reveal the levels and patterns of genetic diversity for several cotton species and “his work has helped breeders on how to best find and utilise allelic diversity to increase the resiliency of cotton to changing weather patterns and rapidly evolving pests and pathogens.”

Dr Gore is “a remarkably productive, versatile, and accomplished scientist” who has been awarded more than $9.3 million in grant funding and his research accomplishments reported in 143 peer-reviewed articles, said Dr Jonathan Wendel, a professor in Iowa State’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, and one of Dr Gore’s nominators. He said Gore, in fact, has averaged an astonishing 10 peer-reviewed publications per year in predominantly high impact journals since completing his PhD in 2009.

Dr Gore, a member of multiple scientific and professional societies, currently serves as editor of The Plant Phenome Journal. He has received numerous awards throughout his career among them being recently named a fellow by the Crop Science Society of America.

Gore earned his bachelor’s degree in Plant Breeding from Cornell and his master’s and his PhD in crop and soil environmental sciences from Virginia Tech. He was a researcher for Rohm and Hass, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, and Lancaster Labs before joining USDA’s agricultural research service as a research geneticist in Arizona in 2009. In 2013 he joined Cornell in SIPS’ plant breeding and genetics section as an associate professor later becoming a professor and then chair of that section.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)