Project Summary: Commercial tomato accessions have been bred for specific traits that allow for ease of harvest and marketability, but many lack important nutrients and flavor compounds. The focus of this study is to identify variation in carotenoid metabolite...
“Exploring the Role of Ethylene in Transcriptional Regulation of the Melon Carotenoid Pathway” Project Summary: Ethylene is a phytohormone emitted by certain fleshy fruits and a key regulator of ripening in crops such as tomato, melon, banana, and pear. Ethylene’s...
“Transportation of cardiac glycosides across tissues in Milkweeds (Asclepias)” Project Summary: Plants in the genus Asclepias, milkweeds, have been a popular study subject for ecological, biochemical, and medicinal purposes. In natural ecosystems,...
My Experience: Spending my summer at the Boyce Thompson Institute taught me so much about agricultural biotechnology. I was assigned to the Mueller lab under Alex Ogbonna, from whom I learned about bioinformatics and the steps of processing big data in the...
“Beet armyworm growth assay” Project Summary: Our project involves testing the effect of Annonaceous acetogenins from pawpaw trees on the fitness of beet armyworms (Spodoptera exigua). Acetogenins are insecticidal compounds produced by Annonaceous plants...
“Exploring the Relationship Between Flower Richness and Bees Infected with Crithidia bombi” Project Summary: Bees are the prime pollinators of many wild habitats and are critical to maintaining the biodiversity of different environments. They pollinate...
“Exploring salt stress on Arabidopsis thaliana growth with DUF247 genes” Project Summary: Salt stress is detrimental to plant growth. Climate change, floods, irrigation, runoff, and silting all introduce increased amounts of salt into the soil that pose a...
“Investigating growth in Nicotiana tabacum plants under stress” Project Summary: Previous studies indicate that dipeptides reduce the negative impacts of stress response in the metabolic processes of plant growth. In particular Tyr-Asp, a proteinogenic...
Project Summary: Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) is a prevalent crop in many countries thanks to its high nutritional value and refreshing taste. Despite this popularity, it is still challenging to successfully cultivate watermelons with negligible crop loss. This is...
