Kansas University researcher Stuart J. Macdonald has received nearly $2.5 million in federal funding to study the genetic control of traits that affect crop yield, human disease risk and drug response.

Macdonald is assistant professor of molecular biosciences at KU and leads a five-year project funded by the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.

The grant aims to provide the research community with a multifaceted set of resources and tools to efficiently identify genetic factors that cause trait variations in the fruit fly.