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...
“Elucidating the function of OsSULTR3;6 through seed physiology and mineral nutrition” Project Summary: Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important agricultural crops in the world, but diseases such as bacterial leaf streak (BLS), caused by...
“Examining the Effects of Domestication on Recombination Landscape in Maize” Project Summary: Maize and its wild progenitor, teosinte, are a valuable system for studying the process of crop domestication. Domestication of maize has led to drastic changes...
“To Bee or Not to Bee? Using Pollinators to Induce Soybean Hybrid Vigor” Project Summary: Commercial soybean lines (Glycine max) are often inbred due to the plant’s propensity for self-pollination. This not only can reduce yield, but also creates...
“Plant Resistance: Changes in Secondary Metabolite Profile of Intercropped Maize” Project Summary: Intercropping is an agronomic practice in which two or more crops are grown on the same field at the same time. It has been found that intercropping and...
“Understanding the Roles of Auxin and Ethylene in Physalis grisea Fruit Drop” Project Summary: Physalis grisea (groundcherry) is a fruit crop native to North America and is an underutilized species. Groundcherry easily drops its fruit through a process...
Project Summary: N2O, which has a global warming potential 300x higher than CO2, originates 56-70% from natural soils, predominantly when soil microbes undergo denitrification. However, there has been limited investigation into how different maize genotypes affect the...
“Manual sampling in maize and development of an earthworm-inspired robot for soil sensing” Project Summary: A plant’s roots and surrounding soil provide valuable information on plant and soil heath that cannot be observed from the surface. Rovers, drones,...
“Exploring the Biolistic Gene Transfer Approach for the Model Hornwort Anthoceros agrestis” Project Summary: Approximately 500 million years ago the first algae washed ashore and began the land plant evolution. The first land plants were nonvascular plants...
Project Summary: The genome serves as the blueprint for an organism, thus having a comprehensive understanding of the various functional elements within an organism’s genome provides for a deeper sense of its underlying biological regulation. Current genome annotation...
“Finding Genome Regions Associated with Pepper Fruit Shape Using Genome-Wide Association Study” Project Summary: Peppers are currently the fourth leading vegetable crop worldwide and are cultivated for an incredible amount of diversity in appearance....
“Investigating the activation/deactivation mechanisms of jasmonate signaling in maize (Zea mays)” Project Summary: The jasmonate signaling pathway controls many plant processes, including growth, development, and defense. One key component in this pathway...
“Construction of a graph-based watermelon pan-genome and investigation of genetic variation in cultivated watermelon and its wild relatives” Project Summary: Watermelon is one of the most popular and economically important fruit crops worldwide. The...
“Transcriptional regulation of the crosstalk between iron (Fe) and copper (Cu) homeostasis” Project Summary: Copper (Cu) and iron (Fe) are essential micronutrients for plant growth and reproduction. Plants balance the beneficial and toxic effects of these...
“Investigating the impacts of parasitism on herbivory & chemical communication in an insect herbivore” Introduction: Acalymma vittatum [Fabricus], the striped cucumber beetle (SCB), is a common agricultural pest to the cucurbit plant family. A....
“Structural diversity in cardenolides: Gaining insights into the biosynthetic pathway” Project Summary: Thanks to its phytochemical defense diversity, the Erysimum genus is better equipped to avoid herbivory than other plants in the Brassicaceae family....
Project Summary: Historically, engagement with social and ethical issues has come too late in the scientific process. My science communication project used discussion groups and workshops to examine how we create time and space for scientists to proactively engage...
“Hormonal modulation of root system architecture in wild tomatoes under salt stress” Project Summary: The increasing human population and reduction in land available for cultivation are threats to agricultural sustainability. This causes environmental...
“Exploring how Landscape Simplification Influences Plant Defensive Strategies as Mediated by Shifts in Herbivore Populations” Project Summary: As global populations continue to rise, agricultural demands have also increased. The expansion of agriculture has caused...
“Does Size Matter? Crithidia Bombi and Body Size in Wild Bees” Project Summary: Crithidia impacts the productivity of wild bees. It causes symptoms related to dysentery and has been found to affect multiple families of bees. Our research is focused on...
“Rhizosphere-on-a-chip for Microbiome Studies” Project Summary: The rhizosphere of a plant is an elusive soil ecosystem comprised of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that surround plant roots. The major barrier to studying rhizosphere microbiota is the...
“Viruses and their vectors: Investigating the effects of Pea enation mosaic virus (PEMV) on Acyrthosiphon pisum” Project Summary: Viral diseases contribute to large economic losses in agriculture worldwide and threaten global food security each year....
“Using Genomics to Understand Species Distribution in Threatened Aconitum noveboracense” Project Summary: There are over 250 species of Aconitum (Ranunculaceae) around the globe, with six being native to North America. One North American species, A....
