PRL History
The MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) was established in 1964 by the Atomic Energy Commission. The mission of the Laboratory was to conduct research on the effects of radiation on plants, as well as to do basic research in plant biology as it related to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. With the dissolution of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1975, the funding of the PRL was taken over by the newly formed Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA) which, in turn, was succeeded by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1978. With the change in mission of the sponsoring agency, the mission of the PRL also underwent changes. The PRL is now funded through the Office of Basic Energy Science of DOE and is engaged in fundamental research on understanding how photosynthetic organisms work on the molecular level to ultimately develop technologies that improve human lives.
In 1964 Professor Anton Lang, Director of the Earhart Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, was named first Director of the PRL and Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology. He recruited the initial eight faculty members of the PRL and oversaw the planning and building of the Laboratory on Wilson Road which was completed in 1966. Starting in December 1964, the first faculty members of the PRL arrived in East Lansing. By fall of 1965, the following faculty members had taken up their positions at the PRL.
Research
Over the 55+ years the PRL has been in operation, our faculty members and their mentees have made many important discoveries as reflected in their publications. They look at many organisms to understand how their photosynthetic machinery works. This includes Arabidopsis thaliana, algae, cyanobacteria and more.
Below is a list of all faculty members from our beginnings, with links to Google Scholar. The Google Scholar searches were generated by searching the name of the researcher, plus "Michigan State University," to better reflect their time at the PRL.
* Director of the PRL
** Founding director of the PRL
Historical Documents
The First Fifty Years (1965-2015)
Read about the first fifty years at the PRL, as written by the founding director, Anton Lang.
1965-1990
Read about the first 25 years at the PRL, as written by the founding director, Anton Lang.
Third International Meeting on Arabidopsis Booklet
This meeting, hosted at MSU April 10-12, 1987, was the first modern conference on Arabidopsis research.