Kansas State University

MANHATTAN — Two researchers from Kansas State University are being honored with prestigious Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards for 2014.

Susan Brown, university distinguished professor of biology, and Frank White, professor of plant pathology, will be recognized, along with two recipients from the University of Kansas, Tuesday, Dec. 9, at a ceremony in the Lied Center of Kansas in Lawrence.

The Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards — established in 1981 by Takeru Higuchi, a distinguished professor at the University of Kansas, and his wife, Aya — recognize outstanding accomplishments in research by faculty members at the University of Kansas and other Kansas Board of Regents universities. The award includes a plaque and a $10,000 grant to support ongoing research.

Brown has been awarded the Olin Petefish Award in Basic Sciences for her work in helping develop a model system for genetic and molecular studies on the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. She led early efforts to sequence the beetle's genome and is a founding member of i5k, an international initiative to sequence 5,000 insect genomes.

Brown serves as director of the Arthropod Genomics Center and the Bioinformatics Core of the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. She joined Kansas State University in 1983.

White has been awarded the Irvin Youngberg Award for Applied Sciences for his work in the molecular biology of bacterial diseases of plants and the genetic analysis of the plant/microbe interactions. He and collaborators have identified a series of host genes that affect susceptibility and resistance in the host.

White's research on transcription activator-like, or TAL, effectors has contributed to recent advancements in TAL effector-mediated genome editing. He joined Kansas State University in 1985.