Sweetpotatoes are an agricultural powerhouse that feeds millions globally. However, their complex genetics make it challenging for breeders to understand and improve traits like yield, disease resistance, and nutritional content. A new study reveals insights into the...
NAIROBI, KENYA, February 22, 2023 – Alliance for Science (the Alliance) and Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) are excited to launch the SciFun Book, a biotechnology program for high school learners, at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi on February 23, 09:00 AM EAT....
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...
Killing crop-damaging insects by targeting genes essential to their survival is a promising approach to pest control. Because essential genes are often conserved across multiple insect species, the challenge is finding targets whose silencing kills the pests but not...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Boyce Thompson Institute celebrated its 22nd annual Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) summer internship program with an award ceremony at the George and Helen Kohut Symposium, which was held at the Institute on August 4. BTI also concluded the fourth year of its...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
“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...
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...
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:...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
Most of us are familiar with “spinach teeth,” the harmless but gritty-chalky mouthfeel caused by the vegetable. A team of researchers from Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and six Chinese universities has identified genes in spinach that regulate its concentration of...
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...
Buying tomatoes and other fruits in the grocery store is always a gamble because, however good they look, they are often firm but lack flavor. A group of plant scientists has discovered a gene that could increase the odds that future store-bought tomatoes stay firm...
After leading the Boyce Thompson Institute for 17 years, David Stern has decided to step down as president. He will retain the role during the search for his successor, and plans to lead the Stern lab well into the future. A remarkable example of ascending through the...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $25 million over five years to four participating institutions to create the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS), which will develop new methods for observing, recording and modulating plant...
The Alliance for Science, a global communications initiative led by BTI Professor Sarah Evanega, received a $189,794 grant from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) to better inform the public about how research using gene editing tools can...
Boyce Thompson Institute is proud to congratulate Alex Ogbonna for receiving a 2021 Borlaug Scholar Award from the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB). Ogbonna is a Cornell University graduate student in Lukas Mueller’s lab at BTI, where he works to leverage...
Boyce Thompson Institute is pleased to welcome Professor Sarah Evanega as the newest addition to our faculty. Sarah is a science communicator whose research and outreach efforts focus on the nexus of plant science and society, and strive to ensure that plant science...
On June 1, Boyce Thompson Institute welcomed 28 of the country’s brightest undergraduate students from universities around the country to experience the life of a researcher for 10 weeks. Seven more interns from local area high schools will join the Institute for six...
Advances in plant science are becoming increasingly important to feed the world while minimizing harm to the environment, but there aren’t enough students interested in the field to keep up with the need. To combat this trend, a group of 30 scientists have published a...
Cyanobacteria are one of the unsung heroes of life on Earth. They first evolved to perform photosynthesis about 2.4 billion years ago, pumping tons of oxygen into the atmosphere – a period known as the Great Oxygenation Event – which enabled the evolution of...
BTI adjunct faculty member Sarah Evanega has been awarded the coveted Borlaug CAST Communication Award. Evanega is the founding director of the Cornell Alliance for Science, a global communications effort that promotes evidence-informed decision-making across a range...
A team of researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) has discovered a distinct group of bacteria that may help fungi and plants acquire soil nutrients. The findings could point the way to cost-effective and eco-friendly methods of enriching soil and improving...
A BTI-led team has identified genes enabling peaches and their wild relatives to tolerate stressful conditions – findings that could help the domesticated peach adapt to climate change. The study, co-led by Boyce Thompson Institute faculty member Zhangjun Fei,...
Dick Staples was an essential member of BTI and the broader plant science community for more than 70 years, from his early days as a graduate student, decades as a faculty member, to his most recent role as an Emeritus Professor. With his passing on January 15, two...
Thousands of years ago, people in the region now known as South America began domesticating Solanum pimpinellifolium, a weedy plant with small, intensely flavored fruit. Over time, the plant evolved into S. lycopersicum – the modern cultivated tomato. Although today’s...
The fabled Silk Road – the 4,000-mile stretch between China and Western Europe where trade flourished from the second century B.C. to the 14th century A.D. – is responsible for one of our favorite and most valuable fruits: the domesticated apple (Malus domestica)....
As I’m writing this, tomorrow is the first day of my final year of college. Even as a senior, I can feel a little bit of nervous anticipation creeping in. There’s so much potential in a beginning. Anything can happen. So much left to learn and so little time to learn...
Plant viruses in the Luteoviridae family devastate many crop varieties, including potatoes, small grains and cotton. The viruses are spread by sap-sucking aphids, which transmit the pathogen into a plant’s vasculature as they feed. Unfortunately, no adequate...
Plant science research has tremendous potential to address pressing global issues including climate change, food insecurity and sustainability. However, without sustained investment in plant science, the necessary research to generate innovative discoveries that solve...
Bacterial speck disease, which reduces both fruit yield and quality, has been a growing problem in tomatoes over the last five years. Because the culpable bacterium, Pseudomonas syringae, prefers a cool and wet climate, crops in places such as New York State have been...
By the fourth week of BTI’s Professional Development Series, I was beginning to fall into a bit of a routine. Every Wednesday, I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed a blanket, and settled down to watch one of BTI’s scientists present their research. Over the weeks, I...
RNA perform a variety of functions in cells, helping with everything from regulating genes to building proteins. In recent years, it has become clear that chemical modifications to RNA help guide these functions, but only a handful of these modifications have been...
Boyce Thompson Institute is excited to welcome Magdalena Julkowska to Ithaca, where she becomes our newest Assistant Professor. Magda’s main research focus is how environmental stress affects plant development and architecture, and she also plans to build an automated...
For a long time, I’ve avoided thinking about grad school. It’s not too hard to do at my small, undergrad-only college. During my first few years, it simply didn’t seem relevant. I was focused on athletics, classwork, and research. Graduate studies seemed like a...
On March 3, I thought I knew what my summer would be like. I had just been accepted into BTI’s summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. I imagined myself in a greenhouse surrounded by vegetation and scribbling in a lab notebook. I imagined...
