Genetics professor puts UGA on the corn map

A career of investigation and groundbreaking discovery in maize genetics has helped Kelly Dawe, Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, reshape how researchers understand—and improve—a vital crop. Through the rich genetic diversity of corn, Dawe has unlocked pathways to long-sought breakthroughs with cross-scale impacts in genetics, cell biology and genome evolution. Our colleagues in Research Communications profile one of UGA's best:

Dawe began his postdoctoral work at a lab in Berkeley that used 3D light microscopy to study maize chromosomes. He followed in the footsteps of Barbara McClintock, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, who had discovered transposons, which are sequences of nucleic acid in DNA that can change their position in the genome. Dawe wanted to develop new methods to visualize maize chromosomes at higher resolution.

Corn was more than a model organism to Dawe. Beautiful, accessible, and genetically expressive, the crop is tall, sturdy, and—with the male and female parts physically separate—very simple to cross.

“That’s why early pioneers of genetics used it,” he said. “It’s so easy to work with as a genetic model system.”

After some time, however, Dawe could sense the field was evolving. Researchers were turning their attention to DNA genome assemblies and sequence analysis. The Human Genome Project, the “rough draft” of the human genome, was declared complete in 2003. The first corn genome to be mapped, B73, was completed a few years later in 2009. Trained in classical genetics and microscopy, Dawe knew it was time to do something new.

He carved out time to immerse himself in modern techniques like genome assembly, short-read mapping, and bioinformatics. Soon he was ready to take on his most ambitious project yet, mapping corn’s 26 genomes.

His goal was to fully sequence a set of 26 well-known maize lines that had become foundational in genetics research but, at that point, had only one complete genome assembly, B73. Dawe knew that sequencing all the lines simultaneously, using consistent technology and methods, would be crucial.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, reaching ever higher. 

Image: Kelly Dawe examines kernels in his office. (Photo by Brandon Ward)