Latvian Faculty Learn Biotech Methods

Five enthusiastic female food science and plant science professors and technologists from the Latvia University of Agriculture spent a month on the University of Illinois campus in order to learn modern biotechnology techniques. "I extracted DNA using my own two hands!" said Daina Karlina, one of the Latvians about her experience in Torbert Rocheford's lab at the U of I.

This rather unique collaboration between an agricultural university in a tiny Baltic country and the U of I College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences on the U.S. prairie began in 2004. Funding became available from a program with the U.S. State Department designed to help educate developing countries that are facing challenges. The grant included funding to bring several Latvian food science and plant science scholars to the U of I to get some hands-on experience in biotechnology methodology.

"We were very busy," said Ina Alsina, a plant physiologist from Latvia. "We went to lectures by Stephen Moose and worked in Torbert Rocheford's lab. We learned how to detect carotenoids in maize."

Alsina said that now that they have gained some experience with biotech, their next step will be to write a proposal to help get funding from the European Community to develop a biotechnology curriculum at their university in Latvia. "Our next step when we get back to Latvia is to write letters and develop a program in order to get licensed and be accredited to teach biotechnology," said Alsina. She expects that the whole process will take one to two years.

"We need to have it made a priority," she said. "Once it is named a priority, it is easier to get funding. It's not easy to explain why we need this at the molecular level."

A portion of the original funding from the U.S. State Department will help Latvia University of Agriculture purchase the basic equipment for a lab that can extract DNA but they need training on how to operate the equipment and advice on what equipment to purchase.

"We helped them search through catalogues filled with biotech equipment to determine what the basics are that they will need to set up a lab," said Nicki Engeseth, a professor of food chemistry who participated in the Latvian's visit to U of I. "They need to think about whether they will be using the equipment primarily for teaching or for research. It makes a difference as to which equipment you get. These are hard decisions for them to make because there is just so much out there. We helped them figure out what they might need."

Latvian faculty are convinced that in order to be competitive in the marketplace, and to equip their graduates with the knowledge they need to succeed in science, that they need to be teaching biotechnology methodology. Right now they teach classical biology of plant breeding and cross breeding to obtain new stronger varieties.

Torbert Rocheford said that that one outcome that may result from this newly developed relationship is some collaborative work on the genetics of a breed of cow called the Latvian Blue—named for its bluish-colored hide. "For some unknown reason, the Latvian Blue is also able to produce good milk from very low-grade feed sources, such as the poor forage materials that grow on the sandy soils near the coast," said Rocheford. This trait may be controlled by genes that could be used to improve milk production efficiency in cows here in the United States.

U of I administrators and researchers Richard Vogen, and Bruce Chassy have also been working to develop content for the new biotechnology curriculum at the Latvian University.

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