Dr. David A. Lightfoot:
Achievements at SIU-C
1. Dr. Lightfoot is Professor for
Biotechnology and Genomics. He has been a member of the Department of Plant,
Soil and General Agriculture at Southern Illinois University since 1991. He
was promoted in 1997 and 2000. He is cross appointed in the Department of
Plant Biology and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
2. He co-authored the RAMP request for
the Center for Excellence in Soybean Research, Teaching and Outreach. He is
a Chair of the Research Committee in the Center for Excellence in Soybean
Research, Teaching and Outreach and director of the Genomic Science Facility
at SIUC. He serves on three university wide committees.
3. He works on GMO safety and gene
discovery by genomics, particularly methods to read and use the DNA
sequences of chromosomes. He targets commercially valuable disease
resistances, phyto-pharmaceuticals and crop yield boosting elements.
4. His ten research projects are or
have been funded by the NSF, USDA, USB, ISPOB, CFAR and industrial sponsors.
He is involved in collaborations with twelve SIUC faculty in eight
additional projects.
5. He is
Director of a University spin-off company “Genome and Agricultural
Biotechnology” LLC 1999-present.
6.
Competitive research grants received in the past twelve years were used to
support about 102 years of Graduate student education (33 students, 20
graduated by Dr Lightfoot, 6 by colleagues at SIUC, 7 current, 1 writing),
26 years of postdoctoral training (10 fellows, 2 current) and 56 years of
technical skill development (20 researchers, 3 current).
7. Contributions to diversity include that ~60% of Dr
Lightfoot’s trainees were women and ~50% were
racial or ethnic minorities. He speaks Spanish.
8. About 70% of trained individuals
have been employed within the field of science. Four have permanent
positions as group leaders in industry. Four became Assistant Professors.
9. Ninety-seven undergraduate student
workers were employed. Fifteen undergraduate students entered graduate
school. Most of the remainder entered the genomics and biotechnology
industries. There are fourteen at the Human Genome Sequencing Center, six at
Monsanto and one or two in many significant scientific groups.
10. Dr. Lightfoot hosted several
tours and courses for high school students (~220 students), a summer course
for upward bound minority students (10) inner city high school science
teacher., soybean growers (7), university administrators (12), and
politicians (5).
11. Dr. Lightfoot hosted
visiting scholars from Thailand, Pakistan and Korea
12. Dr Lightfoot was responsible for developing the
Biotechnology program within the College of Agricultural Sciences for
juniors, seniors and graduate students.
13. Dr
Lightfoot has been awarded two (2) Excellence in Research Awards
14. The Number
of MS and PhD. committees served on was 69 (52 MS, 17 PhD).
15. Twenty
students completing dissertations under Dr Lightfoot’s direction.
16. Dr.
Lightfoot is an active member of 6 Professional Societies
17. Dr.
Lightfoot has been active in International Service with 20 presentations in
12 years
18. Dr.
Lightfoot has provided
Grant Review Panel Service on 3 occasions, 85 ad hoc reviews
and 59 article reviews
19. Dr. Lightfoot has been granted Patents (5) and has patent pending (5)
with a to date licensing value of $62,000
20. He is
currently actively working on twelve articles and a text-book
21. He has
published forty four peer reviewed articles in International journals of
high impact
22. He
has >7,000 Batch Sequence Submissions Published In Electronic Databases
(16).
23. He
has twenty eight edited Publications (28) one Book (1) and Chapters (5)
24. He
has Offered 115 Presentations with Abstracts, seventy five Invited
Presentations were made.
25. He has assisted with fifty four popular press articles
(54).
26 Research Funding.
Prior Internal of
$50,000.00
leveraged $760,000 externally.
27. Research Funding Prior
External of $5,886,658.00 has leveraged$10,406,385 for SIUC
28. Current
funding exceeds $200,000 per year leveraging $650,000 per year for
collaborators
29. He has had 54
Collaborators in Last 5 years.
30. He is an
associate editor for one journal.
