Shiqi Zhang spent many months sitting alone in a dark room, staring intently into the lens of a confocal microscope as she focused a laser beam on plant cells mounted […] Read more »

On May 31, Boyce Thompson Institute welcomed 41 of the country’s brightest undergraduate students from universities around the country to experience the life of a researcher for 10 weeks. Ten […] Read more »

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A team of researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) has discovered a distinct group of bacteria that may help fungi and plants acquire soil nutrients. The findings could point […] Read more »

We are pleased to announce that six BTI researchers received their degrees from Cornell University this spring. Congratulations to our newest alumni: Jason Hoki, Schroeder lab, PhD in Chemistry & […] Read more »

Over-fertilization of agricultural fields is a huge environmental problem. Excess phosphorus from fertilized cropland frequently finds its way into nearby rivers and lakes. A resulting boom of aquatic plant growth […] Read more »

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We are pleased to announce that seven Boyce Thompson Institute researchers received their PhD degrees during the Cornell University commencement ceremony on May 26. Congratulations to our newest alumni: Mariko […] Read more »

Maria Harrison, William H. Crocker Professor at Boyce Thompson Institute and Adjunct Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS) at Cornell University, has been elected to the National […] Read more »

For hundreds of millions of years, plants and fungi have formed symbiotic relationships to trade crucial nutrients, such as phosphate and fatty acids. This relationship is extremely important to the […] Read more »

In an article published this month in the journal New Phytologist, researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute and the National Center for Genome Resources describe the genome sequences (DNA sequences), […] Read more »

In this IS-MPMI's interview with Kevin Cope (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Maria Harrison discusses her research on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and provides advice to young scientists entering the field. Read more »

BTI's Harrison lab will develop Medicago truncatula mutants to identify the function of genes predicted to be important in nitrogen fixation in legumes. Read more »

Researchers from the Harrison lab at BTI have identified a transcriptional program that drives arbuscule degeneration during AM symbiosis. This regulation of arbuscule lifespan has likely contributed to the 400MY stability of the symbiosis by preventing the persistence of fungal cheaters. Read more »

Researchers from the labs of Dr. Maria Harrison at the Boyce Thompson Institute and Dr. Peter Dörmann at the University of Bonn have produced the first experimental evidence to suggest that AM fungi also get lipids from the plant. AM-induced FatM and RAM2 may play specific roles in the biosynthesis of 16:0 βMAG, which cannot be produced by the fungus, providing a clue to understanding the obligate nature of AM fungi. Read more »

“Food security is a mixture of all the different aspects of agriculture. It’s not just growing the food," said Proctor. “It’s not just planting something in the ground – there is a lot more to it.” Read more »

BTI researchers used a genome comparison approach to identify genes necessary for beneficial plant-fungal relationships, which may lead to better crop plants that require less fertilizer input. Read more »

Fluorescent proteins will allow researchers to track phosphate movement through cells in real time. Read more »

Maria Harrison will participate in a $13.5 million, multi-institution systems biology project with Daniel Schachtman of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to develop sorghum that is more drought resistant and uses nitrogen more efficiently. Read more »

BTI researchers Harrison and Floss collaborate with Cornell physicists to understand how roots grow around barriers in the soil, while still heading down. Read more »

Harrison Lab has discovered that plants use EXO70I to form a membrane around the fungus in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses, beneficial associations where plants receive phosphate from fungi in exchange for carbohydrates. Read more »

BTI Professor Emeritus Robert Kohut initiates competition at BTI to give early-career scientists an opportunity to communicate with the general public and practice their “elevator speech.” Read more »

Marshall Tyler nominated Maria Harrison for the 2015 Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award. Read more »

The discovery of the role of this ammonium transporter improves the understanding of how the plant and fungal partners regulate the symbiosis and how phosphate and nitrogen move through the system. Read more »

Professor Maria Harrison is the 2015 winner of the Dennis R. Hoagland Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists, given every three years, for her outstanding work on plant mineral nutrition. Read more »

James Eaglesham began his career as an intern at BTI, and heads to the University of Cambridge, England as a Churchill scholar for pathology research. When back in US, Eaglesham will pursue his doctorate in virology at Harvard, in Cambridge, MA. Read more »

The research project will study genes responsible for beneficial symbioses with bacteria and fungi. Work in the Harrison lab will focus on the plant-fungal AM symbiosis and how it improves phosphorus uptake in plants. Read more »

At its May meeting, the BTI Board of Directors named Maria Harrison as the William H. Crocker Scientist. Read more »