College of Agricultural Sciences

Chapter 7

Crops for Health

 

Goal: Colorado State University will combine knowledge of phytochemistry, human nutrition and plant genetics to extend crop improvement and dietary intervention with the objective to improve human health and human disease prevention via consumption of these crops and be recognized nationally and internationally as an institution attractive to graduate students in Biomedical Agriculture. Crops for Health will include graduate education and research that will define Biomedical Agriculture as a new discipline.

Strategic Actions:

  • Secure faculty expertise in plant biochemistry, molecular genetics, and food chemistry with interests in applying knowledge to characterizing genetic traits of plants useful to human nutrition, i.e. Crops for Health.
  • Organize existing faculty expertise, and seek new positions needed to strengthen and formalize research teams focused on 1) cultivar improvement for : dry bean, potato, wheat, rice, and corn and 2) human diet intervention.
  • Pursue transdisciplinary “Supercluster” status for the Crops for Health Program.
  • Recruit graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to support the Crops for Health program.
  • Secure new space for new faculty and additional lab space for existing faculty and programs.

Critical Resource Growth Needs:

  • Secure substantial grant support for fundamental research linking human nutrition to the development of food crop improvement.
  • Secure funds for three faculty positions. These include one in plant biochemistry, one in molecular genetics and one in food chemistry, all with responsibility to establish a research program to clarify, and more fully commercialize, the mechanisms whereby metabolites confer health-promoting attributes to dry bean, potato and wheat cultivars.
  • Secure new space for new faculty and additional lab space for existing faculty and programs.

 
 
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