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Retiring Faculty, Gary Drews
“I wanted to get a more precise understanding of what happens to the plant, in a more controlled way, to grow plants and to subject them to drought stress and water deficiency,” says Gary Drews who as of August 15 has retired from the School of Biological Sciences after 26 years. Originally his model subject in the lab was Arabidopsis before he transitioned to Zea mays or maize (corn) about ten years ago. A geneticist, Drews’ research interest has stemmed in large part from a global concern: the critical need based on world population growth to increase food production in the next thirty years by a whopping 70 percent according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
There are multiple drivers for that statistic. “The two big ones,” he says, are the world’s population growth and predictions on the increase in meat and dairy consumption because of greater affluence. “As countries become more prosperous,” he explains, “poor countries move from grain consumption to consuming more meat and dairy.” The example he gives is of China, one of the most populous nations in the world which is rapidly moving toward more of a meat and dairy diet which requires a greater yield of sustainable plant sources, especially grain like corn.
There are 50,000 edible plant species. Of those, Drews explains, only a few hundred currently contribute to human food supplies. And of those few hundred, only fifteen species provide 90 percent of human food/energy. Finally, of those fifteen, just three--rice, wheat and corn--provide 60 percent of human food consumption.
To improve food crop yields to meet a burgeoning demand, a researcher needs to know how stressors are negatively impacting plants. In terms of corn, the major causes of crop losses include drought, heat, excess moisture (flooding), frost/ freeze, wind, disease and insects. The biggest stressor by far is drought, resulting in well over 50 percent of losses.
Some of Drews’ SBS colleagues working in plant biology are focused more on insect/plant interactions such as Lissy Coley (see companion article), while others focus on the macro systems of the ecological sciences such as stressors caused by, among others, global warming. But Drews’ work takes place on the whole organism/physiological level, in the lab… or more precisely in the greenhouse, a collective of glass-enclosed bays on the roof of the South Biology building at the School of Biological Sciences.
There, at a controlled level, he stresses his subject model in various ways to see how it changes genetically. “Our lab studies the molecular genetics of seed development,” says Drews. “Our current focus is on development of the endosperm, an important component of the seed because it provides nutrients and developmental signals to the embryo during seed development.” Endosperm is an important source of food, feed, and industrial raw materials, he explains, noting that approximately two-thirds of caloric intake for humans are derived from endosperm. can’t fix something until you understand how it works,” he says. “The first phase is to understand what happens to the plant when the plant is subjected to stress, along the way. Only then can you identify what you can do to alleviate it a little or a lot.”
While he is officially retired, Drews’ lab will continue its work for the time being, meeting its funding obligations from the National Science Foundation which has provided grants for the lab for the past 25 years. No longer in the classroom, Drews will have time to do more snowshoeing and hiking—pandemic permitting. At Alta resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, he has regularly met up with biology faculty for Sunday skiing outings. He also spends time flying off to Washington DC where his wife Janet Shaw, a former SBS faculty member who now keeps a lab in the U of U’s Department of Biochemistry in the medical school, is currently working for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a grantor.
As former chair of the SBS Greenhouse Committee, Gary Drews has long advocated for improvements for the glass bays that are critical to the controlled environments necessary for plant biology, both on the genetic level as well as the ecological. Currently, the School has prioritized the greenhouse, long underwritten by donors to the School’s research operations, by setting up feasibility studies for its improvement and/or replacement.
It’s the legacy of Gary Drews’ work that will inspire, in part, the continuance of plant biology at the U, foundational to the School’s origins.
