News

Apr 2020 10

Wallflowers and the Butterflies that Don’t Love Them

Alan Renwick’s research on the wormseed wallflower began in the 1980s, after a chance meeting with Tufts University professor Frances Chew at a Gordon conference. “I had decided to work on cabbage pests, because Ithaca is in a cabbage-growing area,” Renwick said....

Close up photo of a white cabbage butterfly, Pieris rapae, sitting on a purple flower.

Apr 2020 8

Wallflowers Could Lead to New Drugs

Plant-derived chemicals called cardenolides have long been used to treat heart disease, and have shown potential as cancer therapies. But the compounds are very toxic, making it difficult for doctors to prescribe a dose that works without harming the patient. For...

Closeup photo of an Erysimum baeticum, a wallflower from the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. The flowers have four purple petals each.

Mar 2020 13

Hornwort Genomes Could Lead to Crop Improvement

Some 500 million years ago – when our continents were likely connected in a single land mass and most life existed underwater – hornworts were one of the first groups of plants to colonize land. But biologists have never understood much about the genetics of these...

Closeup photo of the hornwort Anthoceros agrestis. The small tuft of gametophyte is at the bottom, with two pointy sporophytes sticking up.

Jan 2020 29

Speedy Recovery: New Corn Performs Better in Cold

Nearly everyone on Earth is familiar with corn. Literally. Around the world, each person eats an average of 70 pounds of the grain each year, with even more grown for animal feed and biofuel. And as the global population continues to boom, increasing the amount of...

Coralie Salesse-Smith and David Stern are smiling in a greenhouse full of corn plants. Salesse-Smith is reaching out and touching a plant with both hands while Stern watches.

Jan 2020 10

Plants Found to Speak Roundworm’s Language

Nematodes are tiny, ubiquitous roundworms that infect plant roots, causing more than $100 billion in crop damage worldwide each year. New research has found that plants manipulate the worms’ pheromones to repel infestations, providing insights into how farmers...

These tomato roots have been infected with southern root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne incognita). The microscopic roundworms form galls or “knots” where they feed, ultimately stunting the plants and reducing yield. Image credit: BTI/Murli Manohar

Dec 2019 20

Reflections on Mary Clutter

We at BTI were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Dr. Mary Clutter on December 8. Many know Mary from her time at the National Science Foundation, where she began as Program Director in the 1970s, working her way up to become Assistant Director for the...

Dr. Mary Clutter, former BTI board member. Image credit: National Science Foundation

Dec 2019 17

Aspirin-Like Compounds Could Treat Numerous Human Diseases

People have used aspirin to treat pain, fever and inflammation for more than a century, and the drug is also used to reduce the risk of strokes, heart attacks and some cancers. An estimated 100 billion aspirin tablets are taken worldwide each year, but how it works...

BTI faculty member Dan Klessig (right) and senior research associate Hyong Woo Choi (left) discuss an experiment at Boyce Thompson Institute.

Dec 2019 9

Groundcherries: a New Treat

Groundcherries: a New Treat by Carol Bayles, Master Gardener, with input from Esperanza Shenstone, Boyce Thompson Institute Note: this article originally appeared in the Cornell Cooperative Extension Garden Post newsletter Most gardeners love to try new things and...

Nov 2019 12

BTI Researchers Publish High-Impact Nature Papers

We would like to congratulate a pair of BTI faculty members who recently published high-impact research papers in the prestigious research journal Nature. Frank Schroeder and colleagues discovered the first clues on how gut health influences brain health. Published...

BTI graduate student Alaina Petlewski displays the October 31 issue of Nature, for which she took the cover photo.

Nov 2019 1

Harvesting Genes to Improve Watermelons

When many people think of watermelon, they likely think of Citrullus lanatus, the cultivated watermelon with sweet, juicy red fruit enjoyed around the world as a dessert. Indeed, watermelon is one of the world’s most popular fruits, second only to tomato – which...

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