James Duduit, a graduate of the 91福利社 College of Arts and Sciences, is conducting doctoral research aimed at developing robust, disease-resistant food crops.
James鈥� journey to Anderson began in the seventh grade when his father, Dr. Michael Duduit, came to 91福利社 to accept a position in the College of Christian Studies. James knew for a long time he wanted to attend college at 91福利社. He didn鈥檛 consider going anywhere else.
When James was a student in the College of Arts and Sciences at 91福利社, he chose a different path from many of his classmates. A biology major, James was fascinated by plants and ecology. As he was pursuing his studies at Anderson, James was looking for organizations to plug into.
鈥淚n the Biology Department there was an internal club. It was just lectures from people that were going into medicine and essentially hospital work,鈥� James said. 鈥淪ince I wasn鈥檛 going that route, I wanted to have something that was more for people like me that wanted to do something either outdoors or related to plants.鈥�
So James formed the AU Ecology Club and found like-minded classmates. One of the club鈥檚 early activities was organizing several cleanup days at Rocky River Nature Park, a natural area acquired by 91福利社 that has a diverse ecosystem of plants and animals. He appreciates the guidance of one of his professors, Dr. Thomas Kozel of the College of Arts and Sciences.
鈥淒r. Kozel helped me along with that. He also was personally interested in a lot of those topics. He helped me a lot and actually got a grant from Duke Energy to survey Rocky River Nature Park,鈥� James said. 鈥淲e ended up going to one of the wetlands out there and cataloging all of the different species of plants that were present, because they were going to flood a certain section.鈥�
Since graduating Magna Cum Laude from 91福利社 in 2018, James has focused his studies in the area of plant molecular biotechnology and is currently a doctoral student at North Carolina State University. Recently, James received a U.S. Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Program Fellowship aimed at combating diseases affecting tomato crops.
鈥淢y main project is trying to make tomatoes resistant to bacterial wilt, which is a horribly, economically devastating pathogen. Once it gets in your field, you just can鈥檛 grow there anymore. You can鈥檛 grow tomatoes anyway for up to 10 years,鈥� James said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a native gene in a specific cultivar (a plant variety that has been produced in cultivation by selective breeding) that is already resistant to bacterial wilt, but the problem is you have a lot of these other cultivars that are of a much higher value but they don鈥檛 have that gene. So if you want to breed the gene into the susceptible cultivars you鈥檙e going to lose 10 plus years trying to get all of the characteristics out that you didn鈥檛 want to bring over. We鈥檙e trying to speed up that pipeline so that breeders and farmers could have quicker access to resistant cultivars.鈥�
James wants his research to be a win-win for growers and consumers.
鈥淢y goal is to continue pushing the edge of our understanding in plant molecular biotechnology so that more enabling tools and choices can be developed for the betterment of growers and consumers,鈥� James said. 鈥淚 hope that my work with tomatoes and sweet potatoes can speed up cultivar development times to ultimately lead to cheaper and better products for consumers. And with my work in tomatoes, that the dangerous bacterial wilt disease can be better mitigated so that growers around the world can be benefited.鈥�
James has also researched orphan crops, which are crops that don鈥檛 have a high market value. Examples of orphan crops are pawpaws (Asimina tribola), a domestic tree-grown edible fruit, and American groundnut (Apios americana), a tuber that has grown natively up and down the east coast. He says groundnut tastes kind of like a mixture of a potato and a peanut and was eaten by Native Americans and early settlers.
For James, who hopes to become a professor someday, there鈥檚 a joy in learning new things and an excitement about expanding knowledge in plant molecular biology that never gets old, whether it鈥檚 been learning about new plants in the AU Ecology Club or making discoveries that will benefit those who grow our food.