Peggy Ozias-Akins researches ways to grow crops that are more economical for farmers to grow and safer for consumers to eat. Her latest work involves developing a peanut that lacks an allergy- causing protein.
Crop genomics provide savings and safety for consumers
Peggy Ozias-Akins grew up in a small, south Georgia town surrounded by agriculture and her grandmother's love for gardening. She knew she wanted to work with plants when she grew up. Now a world-renowned plant biotechnology expert, she's still growing up in that same small town.
Ozias-Akins, 51, was born and raised in Tifton, Ga. Though she was technically a "city girl," she said, "I knew I wanted to do something with plant biology."
She's too mild-mannered and reserved to get mad if you call her a "gene jockey," a term sometimes used to describe people who till around in the world of DNA. She prefers to be called a plant developmental biologist, though, or simply someone who wants to create crops that are more economical for farmers to grow and safer for consumers to eat.
"I know most people don't really understand how you clone genes or insert them into plants. Most people have heard of genetically modified plants, but often negatively in the press," she said. "But it's clearly a method that has large benefits for growers and consumers."
After graduating high school in Tifton and attending a year at the local junior college, she studied in Florida and then in Germany. In 1986, she returned home and established her laboratory on the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Tifton campus.
Since then, research scientists and students have traveled from across the world to collaborate with and learn from her. She is a professor in the CAES horticulture department.
"Apomixis" is a strange trait that allows a plant to produce a seed identical to itself: a natural clone. For years, Ozias-Akins has searched for the genetic information that causes it. The trait occurs naturally in many plants, but it's rare in domesticated ones. It doesn't happen in any major food crops.
She developed a method to genetically engineer peanuts that other scientists use. Now she's working to create a peanut that doesn't have the protein that causes severe allergic reactions in some people.
Ozias-Akins edits two internationally recognized journals on plant cell and tissue culture. In August, she was appointed chair of the National Environmentally Sound Production Laboratory in Tifton.