Belmont Local Awarded $650k Grant from the National Science Foundation

Carolyn W.T. Lee-Parsons, Chemical Engineering and Chemistry & Chemical Biology professor at Northeastern University, in collaboration with fellow Biology professor, Erin J. Cram, was recently awarded a $650k grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their project proposal, “Zinc Finger Transcription Factors: Regulators of Growth, Development, and Alkaloid Biosynthesis.”

Lee-Parsons, Cram and their team will investigate how plants respond quickly and precisely to attack by using the production of alkaloids from the Madagascar periwinkle plant as an example. The fundamentals gained from this research can potentially contribute to improved resistance of crops towards stress and pathogens and to improved production of medicinal alkaloids from plant or plant culture systems.

This project seeks to determine how the plant coordinately regulates growth, development, and defense through a class of regulatory switches, known as the zinc finger transcription factors. This research will involve the interdisciplinary mentoring and advising of graduate students and undergraduates, and the outreach to K-12 and under-represented groups through the Research Experience for Teachers and Young Scholars Program.

A Belmont local, Lee-Parsons graduated summa cum laude from the University of Kansas with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering; she then received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University’s College of Engineering in addition to the Chemistry & Chemical Biology department in the College of Science.

For the full announcement, click here.