Richard F. Allison, Associate Professor
Contact information:
517-432-1548
allison@msu.edu
Education:
General areas of expertise:
Molecular Plant Virology; plant transformation for disease resistance
Overview of current program:
Current research examines the environmental safety of virus resistant transgenic plants that derive their resistance through gene silencing, RNAi. Another project explores a novel method for the transformation of large seeded legumes. Recent successful transformation of dry bean, Phaseolus vulgaris 1) provides a baseline for increasing the efficiency of this unique transformation technique, and 2) sets the stage for adding a variety of pathogen resistance genes to economically important legume species.
Recent publications:
Deng, M, Schneider, W.L. and Allison, R.F. 2006 Synthesis of minus-strand copies of a viral transgene during viral infections of transgenic plants. Virus Research (in press).
Allison, R.F., Cooper, I., Bujarski, J.J., Falk, B.W., Gendel, S., Hammond, J., Melcher, U., Nagy, P., Sherwood, J., Stark, J., Stewart, C.N., Tepfer, M., Zaitlin, M. 2004. Issues associated with deployment of a type of plant-incorporated protectant (PIP), specifically those based on plant viral coat proteins. SAP Report No. 2004-09 Environmental Protection Agency.
Lammers, A.H., Allison, R.F. and Ramsdell, D.C. 1999 Cloning and sequencing of peach rosette mosaic virus RNA1. Virus Res. 65:57-73.
R.F. Allison, W.L. Schneider and M. Deng. Risk Assessment of virus resistant transgenic plants. in Proceedings from the fifth international symposium the biosafety results of Field Tests of Genetically Modified Plants and Microorganisms. ed Joachim Schiemann. 1998.
Schneider, W.L., Greene, A.E., and Allison, R.F. 1997. The carboxy-terminal two-thirds of the cowpea chlorotic mottle bromovirus capsid protein is incapable of virion formation yet supports systemic movement. J. Virology 71:4862-4865.
Allison, R.F., Schneider, W.L. and Greene, A.E. 1996. Recombination in plants expressing viral transgenes. Seminars in Virology 7: 417-422.
Fang, G.W., Allison, R.F., Zambolim, E.M., Maxwell, D.P. and Gilbertson, R.L. 1995. The complete nucleotide sequence and genome organization of bean common mosaic virus (NL3 strain). Virus Research 39:13-23.
Greene, A.E. and Allison, R.F. 1994. Recombination between viral RNA and transgenic plant transcripts. Science 263:1423-1425.
Courses taught:
Plant Pathology 880 – Plant Virology
Biological Science 111 – Cells and Molecules
Lyman Briggs 149H – Honors Cell and Molecular Biology
B.S., Ohio University, Zoology
M.S., Ohio University, Botany
Ph.D, North Carolina State University, Plant Pathology