Ramsey Lewis
University Faculty Scholar and Charles and Marilyn Stuber Distinguished Professor of Plant Breeding
Tobacco Breeding & Genetics
Faculty
Williams Hall 4310
Current research activities are in the areas of genetics and breeding in the genus Nicotiana. More specifically, research is being conducted to take advantage of biological features of these species in order to:
- develop and study improved and novel plant breeding methodologies
- understand the molecular basis of disease resistance in crop plants
- perform genetics-based manipulation of plant chemistry.
Methods used in our research are very diverse and include plant transformation, DNA marker based techniques, mutagenesis, gene-editing, and conventional field-based approaches.
Our research program also manages the United States Nicotiana Germplasm Collection
website: https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/site.aspx?id=25
and the CORESTA Series of Smokeless Tobacco Reference Products
website: http://go.ncsu.edu/strp
Courses:
CS 413 – Introduction to Plant Breeding
Publications
- Analysis of alkaloids and reducing sugars in processed and unprocessed tobacco leaves using a handheld near infrared spectrometer, JOURNAL OF NEAR INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY (2023)
- Use of exotic Nicotiana tabacum germplasm for confronting an inverse genetic correlation in flue-cured tobacco, CROP SCIENCE (2023)
- Adaptation of Phytophthora nicotianae to Multiple Sources of Partial Resistance in Tobacco, PLANT DISEASE (2022)
- Adding genome-wide genotypic information to a tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) breeding programme, PLANT BREEDING (2022)
- Analyses of diverse low alkaloid tobacco germplasm identify naturally occurring nucleotide variability contributing to reduced leaf nicotine accumulation, MOLECULAR BREEDING (2022)
- CLCNt2 Mediates Nitrate Content in Tobacco Leaf, Impacting the Production of Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines in Cured Leaves, FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE (2022)
- Combined reduced expression of two gene families lowers nicotine content to ultra-low levels in cultivated tobacco, PLANT CELL REPORTS (2022)
- Editing of A622 genes results in ultra-low nicotine whole tobacco plants at the expense of dramatically reduced growth and development, MOLECULAR BREEDING (2022)
- Editorial: Biotechnological and genomic approaches for enhancing agronomic performance of crops, FRONTIERS IN GENETICS (2022)
- Exploitation of heterosis in tobacco breeding in Brazil, CROP BREEDING AND APPLIED BIOTECHNOLOGY (2022)