News

Researchers Berkley Walker and Hiroshi Maeda were awarded $1.9 million to study how plants make critical choices during photosynthesis

The fellowship provides opportunities for international exchange programs in drug discovery, agriculture and medicine.

Maxwell Harman shares his insights on his acceptance to the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Joshua Kaste and Xinyu Fu have been awarded the 2024 Anton Lang Memorial Award. The lecture was given by Robert Last.

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.

Max Harman, graduate student in the PRL Walker lab, was awarded a 2024 Michigan Soybean Association Scholarship.

Food security is an important area of study to Walker lab graduate student Luke Gregory. That’s why when he found an internship for Bayer on LinkedIn, he knew it was the one for him. Bayer’s vision “Health for all, hunger for none,” interested Luke.

Berkley Walker didn’t plan on becoming a scientist; he wanted to be an entrepreneur. And he got started early on that goal: In high school in Portland, Ore., he started a granola bar company, which helped pay for his bachelor’s degree in microbiology.

As potential for biofuel, switchgrass is a perennial plant that is of great interest to researchers. Scientists from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory Walker lab are looking at how these plants regrow, even when regrowing with less than its usual carbon storage.

Binod Basyal is a postdoctoral research associate at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Lab within the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. He tells us about his research, his background and the importance of optimism in solving complex problems.

Two PRL graduate students have been accepted to the Plant Biotechnology for Health and Sustainability Graduate Training Program. This two-year program provides training and career opportunities for students who are interested in research areas related to plant biotechnology.

Berkley Walker is an Assistant Professor in Plant Biology at Michigan State University, USA. He leads a research lab which focuses on understanding how photosynthesis interacts with plant metabolism, with the aim of developing more efficient and nutritious crops.

A persisting falsehood resurfaced on Facebook this week, with users sharing a video suggesting that the federal agency found that a few of the popular house plants would be enough to save a human trapped inside without airflow. Assistant Professor Berkley Walker helps to dispel this myth.

Found in acidic volcanic hot springs, the extremophilic alga Cyanidioschyzon merolae contains a unique process that allows them to survive in extreme environments. Researchers, led by graduate student Anne Steensma from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, are looking at this process and its potential to change how we understand the ways photosynthetic organisms adapt to environmental challenges like high temperatures. 

By explaining a photosynthetic peculiarity in switchgrass, MSU researchers from the Walker lab may have unlocked even more of the plant’s potential.

Complicated sets of biological data can be challenging to extrapolate meaningful information from. Wanting to find a better way to look at this data led Berkley Walker, assistant professor at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, to team up with statistician and Assistant Professor Chih-Li Sung from the Department of Statistics and Probability.

A new study from researchers at Michigan State University underscores that we still have much to learn regarding how plants will function — and how nutritious they will be — as more carbon enters our atmosphere.

Ten Michigan State University laboratories were acknowledged by the Office of Environmental Health and Safety as a part of their inaugural Laboratory Safety Recognition Awards this year.

Mauricio Tejera-Nieves is a postdoctoral researcher in the Walker lab and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. "Above all, I think the most valuable resource is its people, in my experience everyone is so knowledgeable and willing to collaborate."

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.

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.

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.

Berkley Walker is leading a new, nearly $1 million National Science Foundation grant effort to better understand photorespiration, a natural process that saps plants’ productivity.

A new study from Michigan State University is shedding light on how plants could potentially become more efficient at photosynthesis. The long-term implications of this research range from improved agricultural productivity to predicting the effects of climate change.

MSU plant biologist Berkley Walker is part of a team of scientists that is using a 3-year, $1.4 million National Science Foundation  Molecular and Cellular Biosciences award to explore the intersection between photorespiration and one-carbon metabolism, two plant biochemical processes that are critical to plant growth and human nutrition.