MISSION
As part of Mississippi State University, MGEL is dedicated to promoting the educational, research, and service objectives of the University as well as helping MS State reach (and hopefully surpass) the goals listed in Leadership for the 21st Century, the University's plan for 2003-2007.
In more specific terms, MGEL's mission is to:
- Conduct high quality scientific research in an efficient and responsible manner
- Increase understanding of the structure, function, and evolution of crop, forest tree, pest, pathogen, and model organism genomes
- Help sustain, protect, and improve world agriculture and forestry (i.e., our food and fiber supply) in a way that does not diminish biodiversity
- Discover and characterize economic and adaptive genes of agricultural organisms and their wild relatives
- Utilize this information to generate cultivars/strains exhibiting increased yield/quality/resistance without a concomitant increase in input requirements (e.g., water, nitrogen, etc.)
- Maximize sustainable crop production on current farm lands to (hopefully) minimize further human encroachment onto wild lands
- Educate students and the public about the social, economic, and ecological importance of science, agriculture, plant biology, and genomics
- Train budding scientists in a friendly, intellectually-stimulating environment
- Contribute to the economic, educational, social, and technological development of the State of Mississippi
- Increase representation of under-represented groups in academia, science, and agricultural research
- Lead by example
