Jon is from Ithaca, NY and currently goes to school at Ithaca High School. In the Brutnell lab, Jon is working with Kevin Ahern, a lab technician, on the Ac tagging project. Using Southern blotting and DNA extraction techniques, Jon is helping to identify new maize...
More than meets the eye: Identifying unique carotenoid QTLs in Solanum habrochaites introgression lines Project Summary The objective of this project was to use introgression lines (ILs) in the model system tomato, where the wild species S. habrochaites has been...
Jose is now attending the University of California at Berkeley. As an intern, Jose worked under the supervision of his mentor, post-doc Julian Levy on the silencing of kinases and nodulin transripts imiplicated in arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in Medicago...
Investigation of the role of ACA10 in pathogen defense in Arabidopsis R-like genes such as SNC1 confer an activated defense response to avirulent pathogens as well as a characteristic phenotype in certain ecotypes of Arabidopsis thalania. BON1 is a negative regulator...
Joshua’s hometown is Ithaca, NY and is currently a student at Ithaca High School. Joshua is working in the McCouch lab with post doc, Mike Thomson. His project works to identify candidate genes responsible for flowering time in rice plants. For this project, Joshua...
Josh is senior at Ohio Northern University. During his internship, Josh worked with his mentor, post-doctoral associate Chloe Marchive to find assays for various metabolite levels in the literature and then use those assays to quantify the amounts of starch,...
Nδ-acetylornithine is a defensive non protein amino acid in Arabidopsis thaliana In response to insect feeding or treatment with the plant defense elicitor methyl jasmonate, the small crucifer, Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) produces the non-protein amino acid...
Genomic Instability of Duplicated Disease Resistance genes in Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary SNC1 is a pathogen resistance (R-) gene in Arabidopisis thaliana. SNC1 duplication leads to the dwarfed mutant classified as bal, whose most notable characteristic is...
Julie is currently a junior at Whitman College in Washington. During this past summer in the Harrison lab, Julie worked with her mentor Karen Gomez on differential gene expression in Medicago truncatula mutant and wildtype colonized by Gigaspora gigantea. While in the...
Investigation of the role of alternative splicing of the maize gene ZmMATE1 in conferring Aluminum tolerance in acidic soil My project was investigating alternative splicing of the ZmMATE1 gene from maize which contributes to aluminum tolerance. I used techniques such...
Identifying Kinases in the MAP Kinase Signaling Pathway Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) signaling cascade is an evolutionary-conserved mechanism of signal transduction present in all eukaryotes. Plant MAPK modules play an important role in the induction of...
After taking a year off to work at Monsanto, Karen will be returning to Heidelberg College (OH) after her summer in the Jander lab. Under the guidance of post-doc Vijay Joshi, Karen researched the presence of threonine aldolase as expressed on chromosome 3 of...
The role of aquaporins in the aluminum tolerance of Oryza sativa Project Summary In acidic soils with pH lower than 5.5, aluminum (Al) solubilizes to the highly rhizotoxic species Al3+, which poses a threat to crop production worldwide. The Al3+ ion targets the root...
Katherine is currently a Senior at Oakland University in Michigan. For the duration of her internship, Katherine worked under the supervision of her mentor Weiqiang Qian to study the molecular mechanisms of temperature responses in Arabidopsis and increased defense...
Katie is currently a student at the University of Evansville. During her internship Klessig lab, Katie worked under the supervision of her mentor post-doctoral associate Hong-Gu Kang. While at the BTI, Katie worked to locate and characterize the domain of CIP1 which...
Katrice is a student at Cornell University. In the Rose lab under the guidance of Brendan Kelley, Katrice used bioinformatics to identify novel genes involved in the infection of PiE12. To do this, she learned several new techniques including RACE PCR, isolation of...
Diversifying STEM Education in Secondary School Classrooms Through the Applied Research of Maize Natural Variation and Insect Herbivore Resistance Project Summary Maize (Zea mays) is one the world’s most widespread and diverse agronomic crops cultivated and harvested...
Characterization of ethylene signal transduction genes through RNAi gene silencing Understanding the complexity of ethylene signal transduction and regulation in regards to fruit ripening is extremely important, particularly from the economic standpoint of genetic...
Kelly is from nearby Interlaken, NY studying at Boston College. Kelly is working with Liza Conrad, a graduate student in the Brutnell lab, working on the Ac tagging project. Her research is focused on identifying Ac elements that have spontaneously changed to Ds...
Systems analyses of bioenergy production in the United States: Classroom resources for high school teachers and students Optimizing sustainable production of large-scale bioenergy and bioproducts from plant biomass is an important step toward reducing petroleum...
Chemical Composition Analysis of Surface Lipids During Growth Development of Tomato Fruit Recently characterized endogenous plant enzymes, class C endo-β-1,4-glucanases, have recently been found to bind crystalline cellulose in vitro. The current study focused on...
Kevin is from Ithaca and is a student at Ithaca High School. This summer, Kevin worked with technician Kevin Ahern on the Ac project to help develop a two-component system using transposons to tag genes in the maize genome. Kevin also helped out with late-summer maize...
Expression of the essential β-carboxysome protein, CcmN, in Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) andNicotiana benthamiana The carboxysome is a bacterial microcompartment found in the photosynthetic bacteria, cyanobacteria, which function in the carbon concentration mechanism...
Kevin is now a junior at Bethel College in Tennessee. During his internship, Kevin worked under the supervision of his mentors, Ashley Egan and Jeremy Coate to compare polyploid and diploid species of the genus Glycine by comparing seed size, guard cell size, and...
Optimizing the growth of biofuels: Research to advance systems thinking and inquiry in STEM education curricula Project Summary Biofuel derived from cellulosic biomass and oils of plants recently has garnered considerable attention as a renewable energy resource....
Utilizing breakpoint detection algorithms to locate structural variations in wild and cultivated cucumbers What makes each organism and species unique is their genetic makeups. The majority of these differences can be attributed to structural variations (SVs). Ranging...
Kim is currently a student at Trumansburg High School. She worked in the Jander lab with post-doc John Ramsey on a project working to discover the genes that affect aphid resistance in tobacco plants. For this project, Kim learned VIGs, HPLC, and the delicate task of...
De Novo Discovery and Comparison of Transposable Element Families in S. lycopersicum and S. pimpinellifolium Transposable elements (TEs) are sequences of DNA capable of changing their relative position in the genome of an organism either by moving or copying...
Ksenia is a student at local Ithaca High School. In the Jander lab, Ksenia worked on a project investigating Ksenia was working to identify egg laying stimulants for Plutella xylostella (diamondback moth) and Pieris rapae (white cabbage butterfly). For this project,...
Investigating the Role of Chromatin in Meiotic Recombination of Maize Project Abstract Meiosis is the process by which eukaryotic organisms generate gametes for sexual reproduction. In prophase I of meiosis, homologous chromosomes are paired and undergo recombination;...
Kyle currently attends the Rochester Institute of Technology in nearby Rochester, NY. In the Brutnell lab, Kyle worked with technician Phyllis Farmer randomly mutagenizing the chelatase I gene to identify semi-dominant phenotypes in tobacco. For this project, they...
Investigation of Genomic Regions Putatively Associated with Ionomics Phenotypes in Rice My project centers around mineral nutrition in rice and the investigation of two significant hits discovered using Genome Wide Association Analysis from data collected in a...
Accurate Profiling of the Tomato Fruit Transcriptome Project Summary This past summer, I used Next Generation RNA Sequencing technology to profile the tomato fruit transcriptome. An understanding of the gene expression pattern throughout fruit development will help...
Use of GWAS to elucidate temperature-modulated disease resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary Rising temperatures due to climate change are causing increased disease incidence on some crop plants. However, plants may have adapted sophisticated mechanisms...
Investigating the role of GA signaling in arbuscular mycorrhiza Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is a mutualistic plant/fungus interaction that can be formed between almost all land plants and fungi belonging to the phylum Glomeromycota. This relationship is...
Lauren currently attends Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In the Brutnell lab, Lauren worked with graduate student Ling Bai on genotyping maize plants and sequencing across footprint alleles to identify new mutants in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway....
Leah is currently a student at Skidmore College, in Saratoga, NY. While in the Hanson lab, Leah worked with mentor Stephane Bentolila on a project that surveyed mtRNA editing sites for polymorphisms inArabidopsis. While Leah came into the lab with most of the lab...
Cytological Characterization of Zea Mays During Prophase 1 of Meiosis Genetic recombination depends on several factors during meiosis. One of these factors is the occurrence of double strand breaks (DSB’s) which occur during leptotene of prophase I. The goal of my...
Identifying Quantitative Trait Loci for Spodoptera exigua Resistance in Maize In some geographic regions of the world the relatively high abundance of the Spodoptera exigua, beet armyworm, causes severe crop losses. This leads to the heavy application of insecticides,...
Regulation of Plant Defense Response by F-box Gene CPR30 in Arabidopsis One of the major mechanisms for disease resistance is maintained through plant resistance (R) genes. R genes make proteins which indirectly recognize pathogen effector proteins by monitoring the...
Lucas is currently a student at Hamilton College. During this past summer, Lucas worked in the Kochian lab with mentor Owen Hoekenga. In the lab, his work investigated aluminum tolerance in maize. He used root growth assays and association mapping to identify...
Ludmilla is currently a student at Cornell University. She worked in the Jander lab with Dr. Jander on a project working to identify the biochemical pathway of meta-tyrosine synthesis in fescue. For this project, Ludmilla learned HPLC, GC-MS, and plant maintenance....
Luis is currently a student at Tompkins County Community College. For the duration of his internship, Luis worked under the supervision of post-doc Ivan Maureira to perform a molecular phylogenetic study of the genus Teramnus. Luis learned DNA isolation, PCR, gel...
The Function of Sterile Apetala in the Development of Tomato Leaves Project Summary A tomato leaf has dorsiventrical asymmetry caused by a cell’s proximity to the meristem. Different signals are sent to the cells which cause them to differentiate into adaxial (top)...
Production of protease inhibitors in Arabidopsis Many plants produce inhibitors of insect gut proteases as a defense against herbivory. The Jander lab had previously isolated mutants of the genetic model plant Arabidopsis thaliana with altered protease inhibitor...
Mabel is a student at William Smith College and worked this summer in the Stern lab with technician Jocelyn Handley, on a project aimed at mapping the SID2 gene in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. For this project, Mabel used a bulked segregant analysis approach, as well as...
Mallory is currently a senior at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. In the Mueller lab, Mallory’s summer internship focused on identifying common motifs/domains within the untranslated regions of unigenes for members of the Solanaceae family using bioinformatics...
During the summer Maria was a recent graduate at Cal State University- Fresno in California. She worked in the Giovannoni lab with graduate student, Catherine Martel on development of DNA constructs for yeast one-hybrid screens for the NOR fruit ripening promoter....
Singlet oxygen (1O2 ) and the characterization of EX1 and other protein genes involved in plant stress signaling. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are molecules that are produced naturally as a metabolic byproduct during plant metabolism. Certain abiotic and biotic...
