News

Gregg Howe, an MSU College of Natural Science researcher internationally known for his work on plant resilience and how plants respond to insect attacks, will be heading to the University of Tsukuba in Japan as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for the 2022-2023 academic year. Howe and his collaborators will apply cutting-edge genetic technologies to the development of crop plants that will contribute to sustainable agriculture and food security.

As our planet’s climate continues to be unpredictable, understanding how plants respond to adverse environmental conditions becomes essential. Improving crop productivity will be vital to feed the nine billion people estimated to be alive in 2050.

The MSU Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation annually award the Postdoctoral Excellence in Research Award to two exceptional postdoctoral researchers for their contributions to MSU and the greater research community.

Beronda Montgomery received the Adolph E. Gude Jr. Award, which honors the Gude Family, who made possible establishment of the Gude Plant Science Center. Berkley Walker received the Robert Rabson Award, which recognizes postdoctoral scholars and faculty-level early career scientists who have made excellent contributions in the area of bioenergy research.

Member of the Benning lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) Drew Mitchell is a recipient of the 2022 Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics (MMG) Dietrich C. Bauer Scholarship Fund award.

Grad student Philip Engelgau and postdoc Peipei Wang have been awarded the 2022 Anton Lang Memorial Award at a ceremony which took place on Monday, April 25, 2022. This year’s lecture was given by Professor Emeritus Govindjee from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Spartan research in the lab of Cheryl Kerfeld could lead to efficient, low-cost chemical reactions for valuable products with help from teensy compartments made by bacteria.

IMPACTS - Integrated training Model in Plant And Compu-Tational Sciences – is a program funded by the National Science Foundation designed to train doctoral students in advanced computational/data science approaches that can be applied to the field of plant biology. The program provides mentorship and funding to the students selected.

The annual forum provides students with an opportunity to showcase their scholarship and creative activity. Held each spring, the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) brings together an intellectual community of highly motivated students to share their work with faculty, staff, peers and external audiences and receive constructive feedback from judges.

María Santos Merino, postdoctoral researcher from the Ducat lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL), is the first to be awarded the Clarence Suelter Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB).

Spartans in the Kramer lab discover how a plant biochemical could lead to novel approaches for growing crops that are more resilient to fluctuating temperatures.

Encouraging kids  to be future scientists is an outreach effort Heather Roney takes seriously. As an early-career scientist, she has looked for opportunities for outreach and ways to widely communicate the research within her field.

Spartan researchers reveal processes that keep a plant’s energy balance in check during changing conditions, which could lead to more efficient crops.

Integrating single particle cryo-electron microscopy (EM) and molecular dynamics (MD) has made a paradigm shift to the field of structural biology in order to determine both structure and function of biomolecules.

A new study from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) brings fresh insight on the source/sink balance of cyanobacteria and paves the way for further advancements in photosynthetic microbes for potential applications.

University Distinguished Professor Thomas D. Sharkey was named a Pioneer Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), a recognition given to leaders in the society, especially those who have been involved in training graduate students, postdocs and visiting professors.

Michigan State University’s Beronda Montgomery is the recipient of a 2022 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Fellow Award.

As the planet experiences the effects of climate change, questions arise about the future of our planet and daily life in general. Many of the major challenges related to a changing climate and their impact on society have Michigan State University Spartans working on solutions.

Researchers from the Benning lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory have been looking into the signals for activating different states of the cell cycle in microalga, which has potential applications for future biofuel production and cancer research.

Christoph Benning, director of the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL), was elected a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He is among 83 academic inventors to be elected to the group in 2022.

Sean Weise, research assistant professor in the Sharkey lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL), is moving to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to build and teach a new undergraduate class.

Whole-molecule carbon isotope ratios (13C/12C) enable assessments of plant carbon uptake yet conceal information about carbon allocation.

It’s estimated that by 2050, the global population could reach 9 billion. With limited natural resources, feeding, clothing and providing materials to support that many people will be challenging. In Federica Brandizzi’s lab at Michigan State University, she and her colleagues are finding ways to make plants part of the solution.

James Santiago, postdoc in the Sharkey lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) has accepted a new position as a R&D plant physiologist at Soli Organic, a culinary herb company based in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

MSU scientists have developed a new gene discovery method that is helping them to understand how plants recover from stressful situations in their environments.

Professor Jianping Hu has been appointed as the new director of the Molecular Plant Sciences (MPS) Graduate Program at Michigan State University.

A structure that helps algae photosynthesize when carbon dioxide levels are low may also play a role during hyperoxia conditions.

A new study from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) shows how some algae can protect themselves when the oxygen they produce impairs their photosynthetic activity. The discovery also answers a long-standing question about how algae survive when CO2 levels are low.

Using innovative methodologies that combine biology and statistics, researchers from the Kramer lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) observe the ways plants respond to their natural environments.

Three Michigan State University College of Natural Science (NatSci) researchers are among nine MSU faculty members recognized in the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list, an annual compilation of the global leaders in scientific influence by Clarivate Analytics.

Jingcheng Huang is the 2021 recipient of the Kende Award, which acknowledges the best doctoral dissertation in plant sciences at Michigan State University (MSU) over the last two years.

An international team of scientists, including Michigan State University researchers, believe they may have found a molecular mechanism behind the extremely rare blood clots linked to adenovirus COVID-19 vaccines.

Improving the photosynthetic power-plants in crops could mean using less fossil fuel derived energy supplements in crop cultivation and lead to a second Green Revolution, a new life-cycle assessment (LCA) from the Walker lab at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL), finds.

Eleven Michigan State University researchers have been recognized in the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers List compiled by Clarivate Analytics.