Original: Babcock needed assistance with a large Rockefeller-funded project characterizing the genetics and evolutionary processes of plants from the genus Crepis and was interested in developing Crepis into a model plant , to enable genetic investigations similar to those possible in the model insect Drosophila melanogaster .
Simplified: Babcock needed assistance with a large Rockefeller-funded project on the genetics and evolution of plants from the genus Crepis .