Abstract:

The resources dedicated to undergraduate laboratory courses are not insignificant. However, the majority of the time these courses are designed around repeating a task with a known outcome. The exceptions to this scenario are the Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). However, one area that could benefit from an injection of resources is the characterization of orphan crops, particularly those from Africa. These species have not received much attention, either scientifically, or through funded resources, since they do not readily lend themselves to rapid commercial exploitation. However, they do provide a rich source of enquiry for laboratory courses that generate novel data and require the students to interpret new data, not simply decide if they got the ‘right’ answer. One example of such a course and collaboration is between Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Pretoria (UP) in South Africa (1, 2, 3). This collaboration has focused on a potential food crop, Tylosema esculentum, which is endemic to the Kalahari sands region of Southern Africa. The laboratory course activities undertaken at CWRU have resulted in whole genome sequences of more than 60 individuals and a characterization of the diversity of the germplasm, funded by the laboratory support from the Biology Department. The US based course is supplemented by a field course with students traveling to Namibia to collect data and samples in collaboration with students and faculty from NUST and UP. The combination of these two courses provide an ongoing research collaboration that is capable of being sustained with a minimal of external funding, while still providing meaningful research and international experiences for the students. The African Orphan Crops Consortium has the goal of sequencing 100 orphan crops for possible domestication and/or improvement. With current sequencing technology the acquisition of genome and transcriptomic data is no longer the limiting, but the expertise for analyzing this data is now the roadblock. However, incorporating the informatics analyses as part of undergraduate research courses will provide important advances while also allowing the students to obtain bioinformatic skills. The work on a specific plant species will also globally connect the students and the researchers in Africa for the benefit of both parties and increase both the understanding and scientific output across continents.

The development of these courses was supported by grants from the University Center for Innovation in Technology and Education and University Technologies at CWRU.

References:
[1] Christopher A. Cullis (2010) Involving American Undergraduates in research and education collaborations with Africa. Aspects of Applied Biology 96:195 – 200
[2] M. Takundwa, P. M. Chimwamurombe, K. Kunert and C. A. Cullis. (2010) Isolation and characterization of microsatellite repeats in Marama bean (Tylosema esculentum). African J. of Agricultural Research 5: 561-566.67
[3] Cullis CA, Chimwamurombe P, Barker N, Kunert K, Vorster J, (2018) Orphan Legumes Growing in Dry Environments: Marama Bean as a Case Study. Front. Plant Sci., https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01199
[4] Christopher Cullis, David W. Lawlor, Percy Chimwamurombe, Nchimunya Bbebe, Karl Kunert, Juan Vorster. Development of marama bean, an orphan legume, as a crop. Food Energy Secur. 2019;e00164. https://doi.org/10.1002/fes3.164

Keywords:

Undergraduate research courses, lost crops of Africa, international collaborations.