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News

The proposed outside of the new MSU Plant and Environmental Sciences Building. Please note the building rendering is not yet finalized.
September 6, 2024
On Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees voted to authorize construction of a new Plant and Environmental Sciences Building
Six confocal images of tobacco, three showing expression of VAP27-1 and VAP27-3, three showing chloroplasts, and three showing those images merged.
September 5, 2024
Researchers have discovered what bridges two important pieces of cellular machinery in plants
Berkley Walker (right) shows Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz (left) around the lab.
August 26, 2024
Researchers Berkley Walker and Hiroshi Maeda were awarded $1.9 million to study how plants make critical choices during photosynthesis
A computer rendering of bacterial microcompartment shell proteins. There are five round shells and a flat sheet.
August 19, 2024
The organelle can arrange itself in a sheet or a shell — but that doesn’t change how it operates
An illustration of the complex, diversly structured and multilayered organization of Aspergillus fungal cell wall. The inset shows the antifungal drug caspofungin inhibiting the biosynthesis of β-1,3-glucan.
August 7, 2024
Researchers have found how fungi rebuild, reinforce their cell walls after exposure to antifungals, opening opportunities to improve current therapies
A close up of a hand holding a tube with seeds floating in water inside.
July 30, 2024
Researchers in the Brandizzi lab have discovered two proteins that work in tandem to control an important response to cell stress
A person presents in front of a scientific poster
July 25, 2024
Five PRL undergraduate students participated in the 2024 2024 Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences.
Maxwell Harman
July 22, 2024
The fellowship provides opportunities for international exchange programs in drug discovery, agriculture and medicine.
The back of a shirt. It reads Gutterball, and has bowling pins and a bowling ball depicted
July 16, 2024
Gutter Ball returned on June 12, with Tony Schilmiller claiming his fourth championship.
: The Artemis I launch stage is illuminated against a black sky at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s white Orion spacecraft is fixed to the top of the tall, cylindrical orange and white Space Launch System rocket. Bright yellow plumes are gushing from the bottom of the rocket as it begins its launch.
July 12, 2024
NASA awarded its Silver Achievement Medal to a multi-institution team that includes researchers from the College of Natural Science
A large green poplar leaf speckled with water droplets
July 8, 2024
Spartan researchers have developed a way to get poplar trees to produce valuable molecules usually derived from shark livers
A colorful molecular model. Green and purple ribbons depicting the heterodimeric cisprenyltransferase complex floating above gray, red and blue dots depicting a cell membrane
July 1, 2024
Award will support the Vermaas lab’s work in drug discovery through molecular dynamics research in plants. 
A compter generated graphic showing 6 blue cylindars coming off of a lighter blue center. A red piece in the center is circled.
June 20, 2024
This analysis and review suggests that the different families of the OCP use similar structural determinants for non-photochemical quenching.
Maxwell Harman
June 11, 2024
Maxwell Harman shares his insights on his acceptance to the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
The printed program from the 2024 Classes Without Quizzes event was designed to look like a blue book for college exams. A closed copy of the program sits on a table showing that the cover reads “Classes Without Quizzes 2024” and has a spot to write a student’s name, subject, class, section, instructor and date. Behind it, a copy of the program is opened to a page featuring presenter Federica Brandizzi and shows how some of her work is helping prepare plants that astronauts can grow on space flights.
May 17, 2024
Alumni and friends of the college gathered to peer into the future of sustainability with Spartan student and faculty experts
Anton Lang
May 16, 2024
Joshua Kaste and Xinyu Fu have been awarded the 2024 Anton Lang Memorial Award. The lecture was given by Robert Last.
A group of 11 people
May 7, 2024
A group of graduate and undergraduate students participated in the 2024 EnergyTech University Prize, making it to the regionals portion of the competition. The contest is organized by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions and challenges students to create and present a business plan in the energy sector.
Ryan Mosley
April 23, 2024
Tags:
staff
For the past fifteen years, Ryan Mosley has been providing IT support for both the Plant Research Laboratory and the Department of Plant Biology. Now, after accepting a new position on the Research Cyberinfrastructure team at MSU, he will be working with researchers all over campus.
A scientific instrument clamps onto a leaf and a screen shows readouts
April 18, 2024
Researchers from across the Michigan State University plant science community, including from eight PRL labs, participated in this year’s Science Festival on campus.
Xiaotong Jiang and Bailey Kleven
April 16, 2024
Graduate students Xiaotong Jiang and Bailey Kleven are the 2024 recipients of the Keegstra and Thomashow Travel Awards.
A computer graphic of the hemes in a crystal
April 10, 2024
Using molecular dynamics, researchers from the Kramer and Vermaas labs showed how electrons move through a crystal, jumping from heme to heme. The researchers found that the rate at which the electrons jump from one heme to another highly depended on the temperature of the crystal.
Cheryl Kerfeld
April 5, 2024
Cheryl Kerfeld was a panelist at an event in Washington, DC commemorating US innovation at the nanoscale.
Several blue droplets ringed by red circles fluoresce against a black background in a microscope image. A scale bar shows the droplets range between about 10 and 20 micrometers in diameter.
April 1, 2024
Spartan researchers join a nationwide team to create a new way to design cell-sized microfactories that could help make medicines, biofuels and more.
Max Harman
March 28, 2024
Max Harman, graduate student in the PRL Walker lab, was awarded a 2024 Michigan Soybean Association Scholarship.
Four people work with computers
March 28, 2024
Researchers from the PRL Vermaas lab participated in Girls' Math and Science Day, an event designed to encourage young girls to pursue scientific interests.
A person in a lab gives a thumbs up to the camera
March 26, 2024
With a Traveling Fellowship from The Company of Biologists, PhD student Manuel Bellucci came to the PRL Sharkey lab from the University of Rome to study the protective role of isoprene.
Four green plants as seen from above.
March 25, 2024
In a recent study in Plant Physiology, Michigan State University researchers revealed a misconception that had been growing in plant science about one of the fundamental puzzle pieces of photosynthesis. In correcting the record, researchers can now think about using this knowledge to improve plant function and grow more efficient crops.
A person works with a plant in the lab
March 20, 2024
Liana Acevedo-Siaca came to Michigan State University-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, or MSU DOE-PRL in October 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher in David Kramer’s lab. She is now preparing to move across the Atlantic to the Netherlands to start as an Assistant Professor in the Horticulture and Product Physiology Group at Wageningen University in April 2024.
A sunset over a river
February 19, 2024
MSU is a pioneer in plant science, and the renewal of important programs such as the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and the DOE-supported Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center helped bolster DOE-funded expenditures.
Four women look at computers in a lab
February 19, 2024
Fixed-term Assistant Professor Jinjie Liu discusses her work with CURE, the Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience, at Michigan State University.
Cyanobacteria as seen under a microscope
February 7, 2024
A recent publication in Metabolic Engineering looks at how cyanobacteria balance cellular energy between “source and sink,” which may have downstream applications in bioproduction. 
A test tube a hand is putting seeds in
January 26, 2024
How are astronauts going to grow their food when they’re in space? It’s a question that Michigan State University scientists are asking, and one that they’re growing closer to answering.
Lisa Yun
January 18, 2024
Lisa Yun, a graduate student in the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory Ducat lab, has worked at national laboratories and universities since beginning her professional career. When considering an internship, she wanted to experience industry work to better understand the differences between the workload and organization compared to academia. She wanted to work at a startup, more specifically, she wanted to be in a smaller environment with a goal for sustainability.
Donghee Hoh
January 10, 2024
Donghee Hoh, a postdoctoral researcher of the Kramer Lab, was awarded the 2023 American Society of Plant Biologists, or ASPB, Women’s Young Investigator Travel Award. The award paid for travel to the ASPB conference held this August in Savannah, Georgia. Women members of ASPB who are early in their career are eligible for this award.
Sorghum potted plants
January 5, 2024
A recap of 2023 in pictures from the PRL.
A man leans forward, inspecting a leafy green plant in a greenhouse.
December 19, 2023
In a study published in The Plant Journal, researchers looked at the complex regulation of the storage of cell wall mixed-linkage glucan, or MLG, in sorghum, a crop that’s a promising biofuel feedstock. MLG is a component of the cell wall that is believed to have several biological functions, but its precise role during the vegetative growth of plants is not understood well.