News - Boyce Thompson Institute

Oct 2020 28

Summer Intern Blog Week 7: How a Bee is like a Moose

As I’m writing this, tomorrow is the first day of my final year of college. Even as a senior, I can feel a little bit of nervous anticipation creeping in. There’s so much potential in a beginning. Anything can happen. So much left to learn and so little time to...

A close-up selfie of Emily Humphreys wearing a gray mask and over-the-ear headphones in a field of yellow goldenrod.

Sep 2020 18

Michelle Heck Receives Grant to Study Devastating Crop Viruses

Plant viruses in the Luteoviridae family devastate many crop varieties, including potatoes, small grains and cotton. The viruses are spread by sap-sucking aphids, which transmit the pathogen into a plant’s vasculature as they feed. Unfortunately, no adequate...

A medium shot of Michelle Heck in a field of crops, smiling and wearing a sun hat.

Aug 2020 31

Newly Identified Gene Grants Tomatoes Resistance to Bacterial Speck Disease

Bacterial speck disease, which reduces both fruit yield and quality, has been a growing problem in tomatoes over the last five years. Because the culpable bacterium, Pseudomonas syringae, prefers a cool and wet climate, crops in places such as New York State have...

Two small tomato plants in green, four-inch pots. The plant on the left is healthy, and the plant on the right is withered and nearly dead.

Aug 2020 7

Summer Intern Blog Weeks 5 & 6: Digging Beneath the Surface

By the fourth week of BTI’s Professional Development Series, I was beginning to fall into a bit of a routine. Every Wednesday, I made myself a cup of tea, grabbed a blanket, and settled down to watch one of BTI’s scientists present their research. Over the weeks, I...

A rocky hillside with trees and grasses. In the distance is BTI summer intern Emily Humphreys sitting on a giant rock.

Aug 2020 4

NSF Backs Bioinformatics Approach to Understanding Plant RNA Modifications

RNA perform a variety of functions in cells, helping with everything from regulating genes to building proteins. In recent years, it has become clear that chemical modifications to RNA help guide these functions, but only a handful of these modifications have been...

Medium closeup photo of Andrew Nelson smiling and holding a four-pack of small plants, Eutrema salsugineum. He is sitting on table in a greenhouse. Behind him are larger specimens of Eutrema salsugineum, which reach slightly above his head.

Jul 2020 29

Magdalena Julkowska Joins BTI as Newest Faculty Member

Boyce Thompson Institute is excited to welcome Magdalena Julkowska to Ithaca, where she becomes our newest Assistant Professor. Magda’s main research focus is how environmental stress affects plant development and architecture, and she also plans to build an...

A medium closeup picture of Magda Julkowska holding a small plant in her left hand. The plant's roots are still in a clump of dirt in a way so that you can see the natural root architecture.

Jul 2020 23

Summer Intern Blog Weeks 3 & 4: Demystifying Grad School

For a long time, I’ve avoided thinking about grad school. It’s not too hard to do at my small, undergrad-only college. During my first few years, it simply didn’t seem relevant. I was focused on athletics, classwork, and research. Graduate studies seemed like a...

A full photo of BTI summer intern Emily Humphreys sitting on a rocky outrcop in Shenandoah National Park. The sky is blue with a few puffy clouds, and there are mountains in the distance.

Jul 2020 13

Ascribe Bioscience receives $750,000.00 SBIR Phase II award from NSF

Congrats to Ascribe Bioscience for being awarded a $750,000.00 SBIR Phase II award from NSF. The proposed project seeks to develop a novel control for plant pathogens by leveraging a class of small, naturally occurring molecules that elicit specific immune...

Jul 2020 7

Summer Intern Blog Weeks 1 & 2: Why I Want to be Like a Grafted Tomato

On March 3, I thought I knew what my summer would be like. I had just been accepted into BTI’s summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. I imagined myself in a greenhouse surrounded by vegetation and scribbling in a lab notebook. I imagined...

Closeup photo of Emily Humphreys with a purple flower on what appears to be a rocky hillside.

Jun 2020 29

BTI Awarded Numerous Grants

While the past few months have disrupted all sense of normalcy, BTI researchers and staff have remained productive while working from home, or as parts of skeleton crews within the building. As the Institute uses a phased approach to slowly reopen our facilities, a...

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