Understanding the role of a meiosis-specific long intergenic noncoding RNA in Arabidopsis thaliana Project Summary Meiosis is a complex process in which a diploid mother cell divides into four non-identical haploid daughter cells. While many meiotic proteins have been...
Developing a bioassay to study Arabidopsis thaliana defense response to aphid salivary components This summer, I studied the interactions between Arabidopsis thaliana and green peach aphids (Myzus persicae). Aphids ingest sap from the sieve elements of plants using a...
Targeting the role of kinases in tomato PAMP-triggered immunity Project Summary Crop plants play a critical role in agriculture and the global economy. Unfortunately, tomatoes, among other crops, face constant threat from pathogens such as the Pseudomonas syringae...
Study of the germination and a literature review of the nutritional and medicinal values of the Physalis genus Many species in the Physalis genus have been used in traditional medicine for treating stomachaches, headaches and even certain diseases such as malaria. We...
Regulated amino acid accumulation under drought stress in Arabidopsis and tomato Amino acids produced under drought-stress serve as osmolytes to protect plant cells against dehydration. Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates many osmotic stress responses, including production...
Emily is currently a Sophomore at the University of Scranton. During her internship in the Lee lab, Melissa worked under with her mentor Gustavo Acevedo. While at BTI , Melissa worked on a two part project. Part one focused on analyzing transcription factor knockouts...
While her hometown is Dedham, MA, Meredith is currently going to school in Indiana at the University of Notre Dame. Meredith worked with graduate student Ling Bai in the Brutnell lab on the carotenoid project. More specifically, she spent the summer looking for new,...
Mhairi is from Glencoe, Scotland and attends New College in Oxford. She is working with Moira Sheehan, a graduate student, and Denise Costich, a research associate. She is working on characterizing a mutation in the phyB1 gene in terms of the effect of the mutation on...
Exploring Nucleolar Dominance and Concerted Evolution in Dragonfruit Hybrids As a BTI intern, I investigated the expression of ribosomal RNA in diploid and polyploidy hybrids. PCR, RNA extraction, RT-PCR, cloning, and sequencing comprised the techniques that I used to...
Identification of Long Non-Coding RNA and Alternative Splicing Events During Tomato Fruit Development Project Summary Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a class of regulatory RNA that are longer than 200 base pairs and do not code for protein. Alternative splicing...
Michelle is a currently a student at Colgate University in New York. In the Rose lab Michelle worked under the supervision of post-doctoral associate Tal Isaacson. During her internship, Michelle studied the characterization of mutant strains in tomato which have...
Michelle is currently a student at Howard University. This summer, she worked with post-doc Kerry Pedley in the Martin lab on the disease resistance pathway of tomato to Pseudomonas syringae. More specifically, she used a yeast two-hybrid approach to find proteins...
Characterization of the Arabidopsis thaliana Glycosyl Hydrolase family 10(GH10) Project Summary Carbohydrate-active enzymes serve as catalysts in the metabolism and modification of glycosidic bonds. In plants, glycosyl hydrolases (GHs), a main class of...
Identification and characterization of a quantitative trait locus of B-carotene in the Solanum penellii introgression line IL2-2 Synthesized in the plastid, carotenoids are crucial actors in photosynthesis as antioxidants, fighting photo-oxidative damage. Tomatoes...
Characterizing global recombination rates in maize inbreds During my internship, I worked under the supervision of graduate students Gagan Sidhu and Chris Kornak-Bozza as well as Dr. Powlowski to characterize the global recombination rates between a variety of maize...
Regulation of the citrate transporter AtMATE by CBL-CIPK interactions to increase Al resistance inArabidopsis thaliana Aluminum (Al) enters roots cells and affects growth by disrupting nutrient and water uptake as well as several cellular processes including signal...
Finding New Regulators and Genetic Analysis of Rubisco Biogenesis Introduction The real world application of my project at BTI was to understand more about the world’s most abundant enzyme, Rubisco. Identifying how Rubisco is regulated could lead to possibilities in...
Morgan is a student at SUNY Cortland. While in the Jander lab, Morgan worked with her mentor, visiting scientist Dr. Patricia Conklin. Morgan’s summer research focused on silencing the family of strictosidine synthase-like genes present in Arabidopsis with the goal of...
Insertion of the botryococcene metabolic pathway into the nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Project Summary Microalgae based biofuels have been acclaimed as an environmental solution to dependence upon fossil fuels. One noteworthy microalgae species,...
Nedjie, originally from Haiti, now lives in Ithaca and attends Ithaca High School. In addition to taking Government and Economics at Ithaca High this summer, Nedjie worked part-time in the Jander lab with post-doc Carina Barth. Nedjie worked on planting seeds and...
Understanding the role of Turnip Mosaic Virus (TuMV) in plant-insect interactions Plants are susceptible to insect and pathogen attacks, including viral infections that spread from one plant to another through insect vectors, causing severe crop loss each year....
Al3+ toxicity resistance: Evaluation of residues mediating the phosphorylation of At-MATE1, a Multidrug and Toxicity Extrusion membrane transporter. Acidic soils, representing more than 40% of the arable land in the world, contain high levels of aluminum (Al) Al3+....
Nick is originally from Yonkers, New York and currently attends Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY). In the Van Wijk lab, Nick works with the post doc, Wojciech Majeran. His project focuses on analyzing the proteins within two distinct types of...
Maize pyruvate orthophophate dikinase (PPDK), its role in C4 photosynthesis, and the tissue specific expression of PPDK throughout various tissues of maize and in the developing maize kernel. C4 photosynthetic plants (such as maize) evolved from ancestral C3 plant...
Does endoreduplication mediate organ size compensation in neopolyploid Arabidopsis thaliana? Project Summary Endopolyploid cells found in the epidermis of the Arabidopsis thaliana sepal (its outermost floral organ) are products of endoreduplication, a process that...
SNP study of the Ma1 gene Project Summary Malus domestica, commonly known as the domesticated apple, is an economically important crop grown worldwide. Consumers tend to favor apples that generally taste better, and breeders invest time and energy in order to improve...
Functional and Physiological Mechanisms That Mediate Aluminum Tolerance in Sorghum Aluminum (Al) is the third richest element in the Earth’s crust. In highly acidic soils with pH values below 5.0, Al is solubilized as the highly phytotoxic Al3+ species, which inhibits...
Pedigree Visualization and Genome Referencing The Sol Genomics Network (SGN) database contains genealogical information on genetic stocks, but the SGN website lacked a friendly way of showcasing this information. To remedy this, a pedigree visualization tool was...
Peter is currently a senior at Dryden High School in Dryden, NY. He worked in the Pawlowski lab with his mentors Gagan Sidhu and Chris Bozza on sequencing one of the maize recombination genes. By examining sequences of SPO11 genes from 31 diverse maize inbred lines...
Identification of copy number variations (CNVs) in wild and Eurasian cucumber populations Project Summary The Eurasian cucumber population has been domesticated in order to select for traits that improve growth and consumption. In doing so, the population has...
Rebecca lives in Ithaca, but is originally from Raleigh, NC and she currently attends Ithaca High School. Rebecca is working in the McCouch lab, with graduate student, Megan Sweeney, and post doc Endang Septiningsih (Septi), Her project is focused on the evaluation of...
Growing algae: Exploring algal biodiesel in the high school classrooms Greenhouse gasses released in the burning of fossil fuels contribute to global climate change. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, trap...
Rhiannon is originally from Rochester, NY but she just graduated from Cornell University. Rhiannon is a returning student, working with Ruairidh Sawers. This year she is mentoring Michael Martin on characterizing the magnesium chelatase I-subunit. Additionally, she...
Richard is a student at Alcorn State University in Mississippi. Richard completed his internship in the Hanson Lab with the supervision of graduate student Jason Gillman. During the summer, Richard worked on production and analysis of transgenic petunia plants...
Brachypodium distachyon: A Model System for Engineering C4 Traits The overall goal of my project this summer was to use Brachypodium distachyon, a new model grass species, as a tool to further develop our understanding of the genes that regulate the morphology of the...
Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Watermelon Flesh and Rind During Fruit Development The flesh and rind of watermelon fruit are fundamentally different, and with the advent of high throughput sequencing, it is possible to determine this difference at the level of...
Recombination Patterns of Watermelon Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) Project Summary Watermelons are a massive international crop accounting for nearly ten percent of international vegetable production. One of its many cousins is the citron melon which, while lacking...
Quantification of Folate Content in Solanum lycopersicum × Solanum pimpinellifolium Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) for QTL Analysis Using Microbiological Assay Project Summary Deficiency of folate and its derivatives (vitamin B9) is a worldwide problem that can...
Applying plant science research to the classroom using research-based inquiry labs The overall objective of my project was to promote scientific research in classrooms. My time at BTI was split between performing research and working on education outreach. For...
Ryan is currently a student at the University of Rochester in New York. During his internship Klessig lab, Ryan worked under the supervision of jis mentor post-doctoral associate Corina Vlot. While at the BTI, Ryan researched methyl salicylate esterases and their...
Ryanne is currently a student at St. Marys College. She worked in the Giovannoni lab with post-doc Rob Alba on the role of PHYB1 in ripening tomato fruit. For this project, Ryanne learned VIGs, HPLC, and the delicate task of placing aphids on plants.
Complementation of Vitamin B6 Mutations in Arabidopsis thaliana and Saccharomyces cerevisiae with a Ripening Related SlPDX1 cDNA from Tomato Ethylene is an important plant hormone that regulates many physiological processes in plants, including ripening in climacteric...
Exploring the benefits of distributed parallel computing on large biological datasets The scientific community is accumulating biological data at an exponential rate. Next generation sequencing technologies easily accumulate many terabytes of genomic data per week....
Samantha is returning student who is now a sophomore at Cornell University. She worked in the Brutnell lab under the guidance of Kevin Ahern looking at directed gene tagging in Maize. For this project, Samantha used techniques she learned as a high school intern as...
Virus Identification in Sweet Potato Samples Collected from Mozambique and Ghana Through AnalyzingDeep siRNA Sequences Sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam. (Family Convolvulaceae), is among the most important food crops in the world and an extremely important food...
Molecular characterization of Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato isolates derived from an outbreak of bacterial speck disease in the Immokalee region of Florida This summer I studied the interaction between tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) and eightPseudomonas syringae...
Samantha is currently a sophomore at Cornell University after having transferred from SUNY Canton. Samantha worked under the tutelage of her mentor Josh Strable on using a reverse genetics approach to characterize and link a phenotype to the serine threonine protein...
Implementing an RSS feed into the sol genomics website using the PERL programming language The Sol Genomics Network (SGN) is an open-source plant genomics database where researchers and agriculturalists can exchange information. However, this database previously did...
