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Andrea Schwarzbach, PhD Associate Professor Department of Biomedicine Phone: 956.882.5057 Email: [email protected] Medical Botany Lab Dr. Schwarzbach’s lab group is studying various aspects of medicinal and nutritious plant properties, their uses and benefits as well as authentication of plant materials and phylogenetic origins. This work encompasses the study of botanical supplements and functional plant foods to improve nutrition and health. Examples of current research studies that allow undergraduate student participation are: 1. Phylogenetic origin and spread of Kava. Kava is an important medicinal plant containing kava lactones generally prepared as a sedative and antianxiety agent. DNA sequencing and comparative genomics methods are used to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships of biogeographical varieties of this species. This study will provide novel markers to trace kava supplements to their place of origin and allow identification of any adulteration of materials leading to potential toxicity. This is a project that requires both molecular lab work as well as bioinformatics work. 2. Comparative genomics of terpene synthase pathways. Terpenoids are economically important compounds used for a wide variety of applications such as perfumes, disinfectants, and anti-cancer medicines. Plants produce a huge variety of terpenoids with the help of terpene synthase enzymes, however, the pathways for production of the chemicals are not well understood. We are using comparative genomic data to identify different terpene synthases that are found in different groups of plants. This is a primarily bioinformatics approach that requires data mining of large next-generation sequence data sets, genome assemblies and gene annotations followed by comparative genomic analysis.