Johanna is from here in Ithaca, NY and is a student at Ithaca High School. In the Brutnell lab, Johanna is working with a postdoc, Judy Kolkman. Johanna is working on a new Ac-induced mutation, which displays a wilted phenotype even in the presence of adequate water....
Natural variation in arbuscule development and lifespan in selected ecotypes of Medicago truncatulaarbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) symbiosis with Gigaspora gigantea My experiments were a part of the larger Medicago HapMap project, an international research consortium that...
Plant polyamine alternative pathways Project Summary Polyamines are multifunctional biological molecules found in all living organisms. In plants, polyamines respond to biotic and abiotic stressors, so understanding their regulatory and biosynthetic pathways provide...
Characterization of ABC1K Proteins as an Integral Part of Plant Light-Stress Response This summer exposed me to tier-one university research and the rigors associated with it. I am grateful for having this wonderful opportunity, making the connections I did, and...
Lillian is a student at Penn State University. During her internship Martin lab, Lillian and her mentor post-doc Fangming Xiao worked on characterization of phosphorylation of the Psedumonas Type III effector; AvrPtoB. For this project, she learned DNA sequencing,...
Lydia is currently a senior at Ithaca High School. She worked in the Jander lab with Post-doctoral associate Tengfang Huang on a project working to Isolate the gene causing m-tyrosine resistance in Arabidopsis mutant. During her internship, Lydia used techniques such...
Originally from nearby Homer, NY, Colin is currently a student at Bucknell University. This summer, Colin worked with mentor Liza Conrad on the Ac project. Besides using inverse PCR to amplify genes tagged by the Ac transposon, Colin also did a lot of Southern blots,...
Development of Reporter Genes for Monitoring Pattern-Triggered Immunity Project Summary Environments rich in pathogens challenge plant growth. They reduce crop yields worldwide by 10-16%, costing $220 billion annually. Pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) is the first...
Plant-Pathogen Relationship Database The goal of creating a plant-pathogen relationship database is to understand plant pathogens and the way they affect plants. Identifying organism-organism interactions and how they work can be of great practical use to scientists...
Potato overcompensation growth response to Guatemalan tuber moth infection Project Summary Insect herbivory often reduces the overall plant productivity and it has been estimated that herbivory alone affects the agriculture output by 20%. However, in rare cases...
“Indole-3-Glycerol Phosphate Synthase Characterization in Maize Plants” Project Summary In plants, indole-3-glycerol phosphate synthase (IGPS) proteins control the biosynthesis of precursors for the production of important metabolites, including...
“BrAPI connecting the world’s plant breeding data through a mobile application” Project Summary: Breeding technology is advancing very rapidly, and it is important to stay connected between databases to share information faster. It is also important...
“Physiological Mechanism of Fusarium graminearum-induced Aphid Vulnerability on Maize Seedlings” Project Summary Plants are subject to attack by many types of pests. While there has been significant research on plant interactions with these pests...
“Verifying the importation of gRNA rbcL into the chloroplast” Project Summary: CRISPR technology is the latest genome editing craze because it edits DNA cheaply and efficiently. The Stern Lab focuses on utilizing the CRISPR/Cas9 system to edit the...
“Identification of a genomic region in lycopersicoides associated with resistance to Pseudomonas syringe pv. tomato” Project Summary: Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is an economically important crop and a nutritious staple used to enrich diets. Speck is a...
“Understanding the Function of MBP3 gene in Tomato Fruit Development and Ripening” Project Summary The cultivated tomato fruit, Solanum lycopersicum, is an important component of the human diet. By studying genes that are involved in tomato fruit...
“Determining successful targeting of the Cas9 protein to chloroplast” Project Summary: Chloroplasts are crucial components of plant cells in that they serve as the site for photosynthesis, among other important metabolic processes, and contain their own...
“Examining the transcriptomal regulators of arbuscule development” Project Summary: Many soils are low in phosphorus content and require fertilizer use for farming to be successful. Unfortunately, excessive fertilizer use has negative economic and...
“Role of hemocyanin in variation in CLas transmission between ACP isofemale lines” Project Summary: Diaphorina citri or the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), is the insect vector of the citrus greening bacterial pathogen, ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’...
“Differential cell growth in Arabidopsis fruit and its relation to FUL” Project Summary: The fruit is a highly-specialized plant organ and its development is crucial for plant reproduction. Fruits of Arabidopsis thaliana, which are typical of the more than...
“Investigating the Impact of Polyploidization on Meiotic Recombination” Project Summary: Estimates suggest 30-70% of today’s angiosperms are polyploid (containing multiple chromosome sets), including many important agricultural crops, such as cotton,...
“Using the ABI3 Promoter to Rescue Lethal Editosome Mutations” Project Summary: Plants have a complex RNA-editing mechanism that remedies deleterious T à C mutations by subsequently modifying Cytidine for Uridine (C à U) in organelle transcripts. RNA...
“Identifying long non-coding RNA, misannotated and novel genes in the watermelon genome using PacBio Iso-Seq” Project Summary: Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) is an economically important and widely cultivated vegetable crop in the cucurbit family, which...
“Testing the Use of Long ssDNA Template for Transgene Free CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing in Plants” Project Summary: The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated 9 (Cas9) system is an immune response used by bacteria...
“Pedigree Verification in Cassava through Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms” Project Summary: Manihot esculenta, more commonly known as cassava, is a tropical root crop that serves as the primary food source for 500 million people around...
“Characterizing long non-coding RNA in the Asian Citrus Psyllid through genome annotation and molecular biology” Project Summary: Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening disease, is jeopardizing the citrus industry around the world. HLB is an...
Lab: Giovannoni Project Summary Ripening in fleshy fruits is a tightly regulated process aimed at making the fruit appealing to seed-dispersing organisms. The accumulation of key nutrients during ripening also makes fleshy fruits important for a balanced diet....
Molecular Characterization of Novel Bacterial Speck Disease Resistance in a Wild Relative of Tomato Project Summary: Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst) is a pathogen that causes bacterial speck disease on tomatoes which is a chronic problem that is difficult to...
“Carotenoids quantification and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis in a tomato recombinant inbred line (RILs) population” Project Summary: Tomatoes are one of the most widely consumed fruit and a source of various nutrients in humans. However,...
“Mobilizing pattern recognition receptor FLS3 to increase rice resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae” Project Summary: Earth’s population is predicted to reach 10 billion people by 2050. Rice is the number one staple food crop and many developing nations...
Lab: Rose “Characterization of a Putative Cutinase from Tomato Fruits” Project Summary The cuticle, an extracellular layer of fatty acids which coats the outer aerial surface of all land plants. By mass, the cuticle is predominantly composed of cutin, a...
“Determining the functions of herbivore-inducible maize genes on defense against Spodoptera exigua” Project Summary The survival and fitness of plants is affected by a wide variety of biotic and abiotic stresses; hence plants must defend themselves....
“Genome Wide Association Studies of Maize Leaf Area and Dry Weight” Project Summary Maize (Zea mays L.) is an economically important crop that accounts for approximately 90 million planted acres in the United States annually. Maize yields have...
“Identifying Genes Involved in the Establishment of Leaf Polarity within Solanum lycopersicum” Project Summary: Leaves develop from shoot apical meristems (SAMs), which comprise the pool of stem cells that generate plant shoots. Development of...
“Ethylene mediated epigenome changes in ripening climacteric melon” Project Summary: Ripening is a complex process that dramatically alters fruit color, flavor, firmness, and nutritional content. Improving our understanding of this process promotes the...
“Proteins of Obscure Function in the Plastoglobule” Project Summary: Plastoglobules (PGs) are highly dynamic lipoprotein particles in all plastid types, and have important roles in plastid biogenesis/homeostasis, senescence, and abiotic stress responses....
“Variation in Trichome Density, Latex Inducibility, and Resistance Against a Specialist Insect Herbivore in Natural Populations of Common Milkweed” Project Summary: The common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, a native weedy plant that occurs throughout...
Mandy is a student at the University of Delaware. In the Brutnell lab, Mandy’s summer internship focused on identifying, isolating, and cloning of Ds (Dissociation) elements using standard molecular techniques such as high-throughput preparation of genomic DNA from...
Panicle length in Oryza sativa Domesticated rice, Oryza sativa, is an important crop that feeds nearly half of the world’s population. Seven years ago, rice became the first crop plant to have its genome fully sequenced. With the decrease in price and the increased...
Lisa is a veteran of the Brutnell lab, having worked here for the past two summers (and semesters in between). This summer, Lisa worked with graduate student Moira Sheehan on determining if phytochrome B plays a role in flowering time in maize. This summer, Lisa made...
Application of a 2-dimensional phenotyping platform to screen Bangladeshi rice accessions (Oryzasativa) for salinity stress tolerance Project Summary Salt stress due to excess sodium chloride (NaCl) accumulation in agricultural soils degrades arable land worldwide,...
Methods for transient expression in milkweed Project Summary Cardiac glycosides are a diverse family of plant secondary metabolites that have historically been used for a multitude of human medicinal purposes. Their applications include uses in medications warding...
The Effect of TOPorg and TOP Metalloendopeptidases on H2O2 Production and Cell Death during the Hypersensitive Response in Arabidopsis thaliana Plants have developed a two-stage defense mechanism composed of PTI (PAMPs-triggered immunity), the first stage in which...
Project Summary Using a traditional approach to genetics, we are looking for an enhancer to the mad1 mutant. The MAD1 gene plays an important role in the plant cell cycle by helping control the split of chromosomes during mitosis in animals and yeast, but its function...
Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses reveal the herbivore-induced natural variability in jasmonate-mediated plant defense responses of two inbred maize lines Project Summary In maize plants, Jasmonates are a class of signaling molecules responsible for responses to...
The Missing LINC: The Relationship Between Nuclear Structure and Epigenetic Regulation The Arabidopsis LINC proteins are nuclear coiled-coil proteins suspected to be analogs of lamin proteins, which compose the nuclear lamina in animal cells. A mutation in the LINC1...
High Pigment Mutations and Environmental Responses Project Summary Tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are widely grown crops, important for their nutritive properties. Both their economic and health applications, combined with the wide availability of genetic...
Sara is currently a student at Dryden High School. Sara and David worked with mentors Christina Hoffman and Greg Wilson and fellow intern David Drew on a project aimed toward finding specific transposable elements, MITES, in different varieties of rice.
