Bob Stupar joined the University of Minnesota in 2008.
He is a Professor in Agronomy and Plant Genetics and teaches courses on plant genetics. His research focuses on molecular genetics and genomics of legume crop species, including soybean and pea. In addition to the work his lab does independently, he has had collaborations with Seth Naeve (Professor in Agronomy and Extension) and has current collaborations with Bob Koch (Professor in Entomology) and Aaron Lorenz (Professor in Agronomy).
His first real foray into plants was when he was an undergraduate here at the University of Minnesota and took a plant pathology course while earning his B.S. in Biology. While he didn’t grow up feeling like a scientist, he found science classes and thinking about science related things more satisfying than doing other things because of the focus in science on discovering the truth. One of the things he feels sets science apart from many other professions is that, “In science you are learning real things that are true whether you want to believe them or not.”
While working towards his B.S. degree, he had the opportunity to do undergraduate research projects which gave him an idea of the variety of research types. His very first project was working in a bio rhythm research lab on vining as a physiological trait in pole beans and the second project was interning at a field station in Bethel, MN. He really enjoyed both of those experiences but the summer after his senior year he had an opportunity to work in a molecular genetics lab and that was where he found the best fit.
He went to grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the aim of getting his PhD in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics. His main motivation was his interest in food security and finding scientific solutions to the problem of having enough food. During his time at UW-Madison he was a “happy lab rat” and really loved the hands-on work of research but discovered that he also really enjoyed writing papers and publishing. It became clear that the mix of hands-on work with writing and publishing that an academic career provides would be a good fit.
The Stupar lab works on soybean and pea and a lot of their work is targeted towards developing traits for breeders that can be used in farmer’s fields. They aim for not only trait discovery and gene discovery, but trait development through breeding and editing. Iron deficiency chlorosis (IDC) has been a common target, but they also work on shoot architecture traits and seed composition traits. “Everything we are doing is sort of focused on new things that bring value to the farmer and to the land,” he says, “and I like to think the short answer to what we are doing is, we're helping the farmer. I also hope we're helping the consumer. And by proxy, I like to think we are helping to develop the genetics that can be more sustainable and productive against changing environments, both economic and environmental.”
As a humanitarian, he worries about resource depletion and climate change and the many things with which agriculture will be challenged in the future and sees his work as a way to try to improve some of those problems. “In a way,” he points out, “we are asking the same questions we’ve always asked.” Some issues, like lack of water, have been a concern for as long as people have farmed. “Take drought for example,” he says, “how do we shore up our cropping systems from issues with water deficiencies? We have a lot of sequenced genomes to look at so that we can start to understand why these traits are variable and which genes cause that. That can lead us to better, more efficient solutions from the genetic side of things.” The problems are large and multifactorial, but he knows progress can be made through collaboration: “I’m one of many people trying to solve these problems and the reality is most of us are probably not going to hit on the thing that totally solves a problem, but as a collective we will. So, if I can contribute to this effort, if I can publish a paper, stimulate an idea, have a conversation, I still feel like that’s really useful even if it’s not necessarily my discovery that changes everything.”
Although he didn’t set out necessarily intending to study legumes when he landed in a position focused on them, he thought it was a great system on which to work because peas and legumes are historically researched crops. Their long use as botanical models means that there is a rich history, including Mendel’s use of pea in his observations of trait segregation and independent assortment in 1865. But additionally, Stupar knew a few people in the community, and he knew that they were on the brink of developing a lot of new resources that were going to be great for someone like him. The first genome sequence of soybean was becoming available to researchers when he was hired in 2008, even though it wasn’t published until 2010. Because of this, he was able to start playing with the genome right away and start to figure out what was in there. “It was a fascinating time because there were so many unknowns, so many unanswered questions about where variation might come from, what the structure of these genes were, how duplicated they are, how redundant it is, all that kind of stuff was a total mystery.” There was this exciting balance of getting into a field that had tons of foundational research but also being at the beginning of a massive expansion in knowledge, too.
Bob Stupar loves his work, that much is evident. He points out, though, that Ag work can be challenging. “Anytime you work on abiotic stress traits at the field level, it is awfully hard to create a reliable sort of experimental design because the sun and the rain -- that stuff is hard to control. You have to get a little lucky. If you have one hailstorm or one windstorm, that can totally wipe out your experiment, which can be a year of planning and work lost,” he says, “so, I have a balance of projects.” The key is diversifying the type of research modes: “Some of my projects are things that rely on crossing your fingers, hoping the weather behaves like you want it to. And then I have another bunch of projects that can be done entirely indoors. But most of those are just developing the genetics, which will eventually have to be put out in the field. On the hardcore genomics side, we can do full experiments and publish papers on that without having to rely on outdoor luck. But the more and more you do Ag type research, the more you're going to be hoping.” Dependence on the sun and rain and a whole lot of hoping is the plight of Ag researchers and farmers, alike.
