Project Grant 2310357

The Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado Denver, was awarded $333,918 under the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to conduct collaborative research from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2027. The university will use topological data analysis techniques to extract information embedded in plant leaf morphology and gene expression profiles, with the goal of predicting leaf shape from molecular data using deep learning models. Specifically, the researchers will use the Euler characteristic transform and Mapper algorithm to measure total information in leaf shapes and visualize underlying gene expression data structures. An encoder-decoder neural network will then aim to map gene expression profiles to leaf shape features. All project outcomes will be publicly available through long-term repositories. If successful, this research could help address a grand challenge in biology by enabling prediction of organismal form from genomic information.