News
Bowling scores only a mom could love, records shattered at PRL bowling tourney
Eric Young wins big time, scoring an impressive 267 to take home the Gutter Ball XXIII trophy.
May 31, 2017
MSU hosts first ever Fascination of Plants Day
MSU plant biologists invited the general public to explore the world of plants and algae in a celebration that took place alongside hundreds of others in over 50 countries.
May 30, 2017
2017 Anton Lang Memorial Award Winners Announced
Clement Aussignargues and Joshua MacCready have won the 2017 Anton Lang Memorial Award.
May 26, 2017
Getting first prize at the UURAF: Our 3 winners tell us how
We interview Hope, Michael, and Cassie to find out what drew them to science, what makes them tick, and why they think they did well at the UURAF.
May 24, 2017
Growing pains and how that might affect seed quality
The Brandizzi lab is showing how extreme heat negatively impacts seed quality in plants targeted for producing biofuels.
May 16, 2017
Sheng Yang He re-appointed as a Howard Hughes HHMI Investigator
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute – Gordon Betty Moore Foundation investigator since 2011, He has been reappointed as an HHMI investigator for a second term.
May 9, 2017
Looking deeper into peroxisome proliferation
The Hu lab has identified a new protein that helps control how little cellular factories, called peroxisomes, divide and proliferate.
May 2, 2017
A thousand tales of plant defense
The He lab has completed an unprecedented study of over 1000 plant varieties to tease out their major defense systems against bacteria.
April 25, 2017
Gregg Howe awarded Fellow of ASPB Award
The American Society of Plant Biologists award recognizes distinguished and long-term contributions to plant biology and service to the society.
April 18, 2017
Howe receives 2017 MSU Innovation Center Award
Dr. Gregg Howe has received the 2017 Innovation of the Year award for research that uncouples the antagonistic relationship between plant growth and defense.
April 13, 2017
Unpacking a new bacterial mini-factory
The new compartment, widely spread among different kinds of bacteria, might be reassembled to someday sustainably produce “green” chemicals, medicines, and renewable energy.
March 30, 2017
From the lab to the world: solving big problems in agriculture and energy
Introducing MultispeQ, an affordable and sophisticated scientific instrument that measures plant health and photosynthetic parameters.
March 22, 2017
Power Plants: Kramer lab featured in MSU President's 2016 Report
The 90-second clip is part of a series showcasing MSU's abilities in anticipating global challenges. The Kramer lab focuses on understanding photosynthesis in real time and in dynamic environments.
March 16, 2017
Beronda Montgomery: Growing from adviser to mentor
"Mentoring is so much more than offering generic advice." Check out Beronda's take on MSU's Faculty Voice series.
March 13, 2017
Montgomery Smith granted 2017 Excellence in Diversity Award
The Benning lab freshman has received an honorable mention in the "Students Making a Difference Through Artistic Expression" contest for her visual arts social issues series on Detroit.
February 17, 2017
Growth-defense gene pulls many strings in plant cell factories
The Brandizzi lab has demonstrated how one master gene fine-tunes how massive protein factories in plant cells allocate resources to growth and defense functions.
February 7, 2017
Investing in cell wall growth for improved photosynthesis
Changes in leaf cell wall make-up can dramatically affect how large or thick leaves grow. This knowledge may help improve how crops intercept light and exchange gas with the atmosphere.
January 24, 2017
Scratching the genetic surface of poisonous mushrooms
The Walton lab has sequenced the genomes of two species of poisonous Amanita mushrooms, with an eye towards harnessing them for medicinal and biological uses.
January 17, 2017
How cyanobacteria define their middle point
The mechanism promotes cell division to ensure daughter cells are healthy and of equal size.
January 11, 2017
Molecular velcro boosts microalgae's potential in biofuel industrial applications
Derek Fedeson from the Ducat lab has designed a system to attach cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, to yeast and other surfaces.
January 10, 2017
Why this promising biofuel crop takes a summer break
By explaining a photosynthetic peculiarity in switchgrass, MSU researchers from the Walker lab may have unlocked even more of the plant’s potential.
Untying molecular knots: Making molecular simulations more efficient with LongBondEliminator
Researchers from the Vermaas lab created a more efficient tool to solve the problem of ring piercings in molecular simulations. This work is published in Biomolecules.
From colleagues to collaborators, a cross-department conversation links statistics to plant science
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.