Yiping Qi
University of Maryland, MD·Plant Science & Agriculture
Crop breeding depends on changing genes. CRISPR genome editing lets scientists alter DNA at chosen sites, but current tools in plants have real limits.
- Fields
Plant Science & Agriculture
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
genome editing
plant biotechnology
Cas9
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Establish a shoot apical meristem-based transformation method that works across multiple wild and domesticated einkorn wheat accessions, measuring delivery and germline transmission with GFP and RUBY reporters.
- Develop multiplexed CRISPR-Cas9 and Cas12a editing in einkorn, testing knockout, candidate-gene validation and promoter editing on MLO and coleoptile-color genes, with PCR amplicon sequencing and phenotyping.
- Develop DNA-free einkorn editing by delivering Cas9 and Cas12a ribonucleoproteins (protein–RNA complexes) into shoot meristems, aiming for higher efficiency and fewer off-target edits.
- Increase prime editing efficiency in rice, tomato and poplar by engineering more active prime editor proteins and improving pegRNA structure and expression for single and multiplex edits.
- Boost prime editing in plants by modifying plant DNA repair pathways, testing the gains in both monocot and dicot species.
- Expand where CRISPR can target in plants by improving PAM-relaxed Cas12a editing and PAM-less Cas9 editing and base editing, tested in rice and tomato.
- Convert the new CRISPR editing and gene activation tools into all-in-one vectors for genome-wide genetic screens in plants and distribute them through Addgene.
More about the research
They can only reach certain DNA sequences, they work inefficiently for precise rewrites, and they are hard to apply in crops with complex genomes such as wheat. The three projects build better plant genome-engineering tools. They broaden where CRISPR can cut, make precise "prime" editing efficient, and bring editing to einkorn, a simple diploid wheat.
Why it matters
More flexible, precise and efficient editing tools could speed the breeding of crops with higher yield, better quality, disease resistance and tolerance to drought, heat and other environmental stresses. Workable editing in einkorn could let wheat researchers find gene functions in a simple diploid model and move those findings into bread and durum wheat. Shared vectors and protocols could serve plant scientists broadly.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
EDGE-FGT: Genotype-independent Transformation and Genome Editing in Diploid Wheat via Shoot Apical Meristem (SAM)-based Delivery
NSF · Sep 2026 – Aug 2029
Collaborative Research: NSF-DBT: TRTech-PGR: Developing Robust Prime Editing Systems in Plants
NSF · Nov 2024 – Oct 2027
TRTech-PGR: Development of highly efficient and unconstrained CRISPR systems for plant functional genomics
NSF · Mar 2022 – Feb 2027
Closest labs
Steven Strauss
Oregon State University, OR·Plant Science & Agriculture
Screen about 100 sequenced wild Agrobacterium strains for their ability to transform poplar and induce transgenic shoots, and identify the strains with the highest rates.
Benjamin Blackman
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Plant Science & Agriculture
Characterize the cell types and gene expression patterns that arise as sunflower tissue attempts to regenerate, using tissue-level analyses and single-nucleus transcriptomics, which reads gene activity in individual cell nuclei.
Xiao Wang
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Genetics
Test whether adenine base editors, which chemically rewrite a single DNA base without cutting both strands, can correct the PAH R408W variant in cultured human liver cells and restore phenylalanine hydroxylase activity.
The school
University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.
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