The First Million: BTI’s Bold Step into its Second Century

The First Million: BTI’s Bold Step into its Second Century

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) proudly announces the launch of a three-year fundraising campaign. This initiative marks a pivotal moment in BTI’s journey, aimed at enhancing its scientific discoveries and the...
Gene Editing: New Study Reveals Shifting Public Sentiment

Gene Editing: New Study Reveals Shifting Public Sentiment

Gene editing and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been topics of significant debate in recent years. A new study from the Alliance for Science has revealed a positive shift in public sentiment towards one aspect of agricultural biotechnology, showing that...
2023 PGS Triad Mini-grant Awardees

2023 PGS Triad Mini-grant Awardees

We are excited to announce the recipients of the 2023 Triad funded PGS Mini-grant Program. Congratulations to all the awardees and thanks to all the participants! The committee of PGS members along with a faculty advisor reviewed a total of 8 proposals and have...
BTI Welcomes 2023 Undergraduate Student Researchers

BTI Welcomes 2023 Undergraduate Student Researchers

On June 5, Boyce Thompson Institute welcomed 39 undergraduate students from colleges across the country to experience the life of a researcher for 10 weeks. Now in its 23rd year, BTI’s NSF funded Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) and USDA funded Innovations in...
BTI promotes faculty member Fay-Wei Li

BTI promotes faculty member Fay-Wei Li

The Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) is delighted to announce that faculty member Fay-Wei Li has been promoted to Associate Professor on January 13. Li was evaluated on his achievements to date and likelihood of continued success in the future. Since joining BTI in...
Reflections on Sorina Popescu (1969 – 2022)

Reflections on Sorina Popescu (1969 – 2022)

17We at BTI were saddened to hear that former faculty member Sorina Popescu passed away at the end of last year after a long battle with cancer.Born in Romania, Sorina received a Master’s degree in biology from the University of Bucharest, a Ph.D. in molecular...
Finding genes to help fruit adapt to droughts

Finding genes to help fruit adapt to droughts

As climate change is expected to lead to more frequent periods of drought, researchers are increasingly working to make discoveries that can help plants adapt to prolonged water stress. Researchers from Boyce Thompson Institute and Cornell University have completed...
Jane Silverthorne, a giant of plant science

Jane Silverthorne, a giant of plant science

Dr. Jane Silverthorne, Chair of BTI’s Scientific Advisory Board and member of its Board of Directors, died unexpectedly on August 15, 2022. Jane’s rich biography and programmatic contributions have been remembered by UC Santa Cruz, where she held her first faculty...
New insights into how serotonin regulates behavior

New insights into how serotonin regulates behavior

Rates of anxiety and depression have been increasing around the world for decades, a trend that has been sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. New research led by the Boyce Thompson Institute’s Frank Schroeder could ultimately lead to new therapeutics to help...
Breedbase software to help speed crop improvement

Breedbase software to help speed crop improvement

To help plant breeders speed crop improvement around the world, Lukas Mueller of the Boyce Thompson Institute worked with an international team of 57 people to create Breedbase, a database software that was described in the July issue of G3. “In the current era of...
Reflections on Jay Jacobson (1934 – 2022)

Reflections on Jay Jacobson (1934 – 2022)

We at BTI were sad to hear of the passing of Dr. Jay Jacobson, a plant physiologist who spent 35 years conducting research in the Environmental Biology group at the Institute. During the 1960s and 1970s, scientists began to recognize that the most serious and...
Reflections on Vladimir “Vlado” Macko (1930 – 2022)

Reflections on Vladimir “Vlado” Macko (1930 – 2022)

We at BTI were sad to hear of the passing of Dr. Vladimir “Vlado” Macko, a plant biochemist who spent nearly 30 years conducting research at BTI. After joining BTI to work on rust fungi in December 1969, Macko and his colleagues discovered the chemical nature of host...
PlantGENE to catalyze plant biotechnology improvement

PlantGENE to catalyze plant biotechnology improvement

As the global population booms and climate change continues, improving crops to produce more food, use less resources like water and pesticides, and survive harsher environments will be needed to feed the planet sustainably. For example, fungal diseases are...
Worms as a model for personalized medicine

Worms as a model for personalized medicine

Tailoring a person’s diet or medicine based on their genomes has been a goal of the medical community for decades, but the strategy has not been widely successful because people metabolize chemicals differently. A drug may work differently for two patients because...
Phosphate biosensors could lead to more efficient fertilizer usage

Phosphate biosensors could lead to more efficient fertilizer usage

Shiqi Zhang spent many months sitting alone in a dark room, staring intently into the lens of a confocal microscope as she focused a laser beam on plant cells mounted on a glass slide. She was measuring changes in the intensity of fluorescent light emitted by the...
The missing links: Finding function in lincRNAs

The missing links: Finding function in lincRNAs

Genomes contain regions between protein-coding genes that produce lengthy RNA molecules that never give rise to a protein. These long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) are thought to have important functions, such as regulating responses to environmental change....
Wild tomato genome will benefit domesticated cousins

Wild tomato genome will benefit domesticated cousins

Wild relatives of crops are becoming increasingly valuable to plant researchers and breeders. During the process of domestication, crops tend to lose many genes, but wild relatives often retain genes that could be useful – such as genes that confer resistance to...
New species of alga named for poet Amanda Gorman

New species of alga named for poet Amanda Gorman

“And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.” – Amanda Gorman, from “The Hill We Climb.”   In 2020, a group of researchers in Fay-Wei Li’s lab at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) had done what many scientists dream of...
BTI Welcomes Summer Student Interns

BTI Welcomes Summer Student Interns

On May 31, Boyce Thompson Institute welcomed 41 of the country’s brightest undergraduate students from universities around the country to experience the life of a researcher for 10 weeks. Ten more research interns from local area high schools will join the Institute...
Congratulations to BTI’s Spring 2022 Graduates!

Congratulations to BTI’s Spring 2022 Graduates!

We are pleased to announce that three BTI researchers received their degrees during the Cornell University commencement ceremony on May 28. Congratulations to our newest alumni! Alex Ogbonna, Mueller lab, PhD in Plant Breeding & Genetics, Dissertation title:...
Sheila Ochugboju Named Executive Director of Alliance for Science

Sheila Ochugboju Named Executive Director of Alliance for Science

Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) is pleased to welcome Sheila Ochugboju as the new Executive Director of the Alliance for Science (AfS), a global communications initiative dedicated to promoting access to scientific innovation as a means of enhancing food security,...
BTI’s Greg Martin Elected to National Academy of Sciences

BTI’s Greg Martin Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Greg Martin, Boyce Schulze Downey Professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute and Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS) at Cornell University, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Martin is one of 150 new members announced on May...
New software to help discover valuable compounds

New software to help discover valuable compounds

As a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of BTI faculty member Frank Schroeder, Max Helf saw his labmates continually struggle when they were analyzing data. So, he decided to do something about it and developed a free, open-source app called Metaboseek, which...
Professor Dan Klessig retires after 48 years of research

Professor Dan Klessig retires after 48 years of research

After 48 years of performing molecular biology research, including 22 years at Boyce Thompson Institute, Professor Dan Klessig retired on December 31. The former BTI President will remain associated with the Institute as an Emeritus Professor. A self-described “farmer...
Secrets of quillwort photosynthesis could boost crop efficiency

Secrets of quillwort photosynthesis could boost crop efficiency

The humble quillworts are an ancient group of about 250 small, aquatic plants that have largely been ignored by modern botanists. A group of researchers, led by Boyce Thompson Institute’s Fay-Wei Li, have sequenced the first quillwort genome and uncovered some secrets...
Alumni Reunion Zooms

Alumni Reunion Zooms

For many of us, the pandemic has shined an ever-brighter light on the importance of connection and mutual support. Two members of the BTI community who shared that insight, faculty emeritus Dr. Alan Renwick and Aly Evans of the development team, partnered to reconnect...