Graduate student Hannah Parks and postdoctoral researcher María Santos Merino have been awarded the 2023 Anton Lang Memorial Awards at a ceremony which took place on Monday, April 24, 2023. This year’s lecture was given by University Distinguished Professor Thomas D. Sharkey from Michigan State University.

Cyanobacteria, photosynthetic microorganisms which have widespread uses in the production of pigments, antioxidants and supplements and potential ones in biofuels and plastics, have a new way to communicate with one another to control their population, researchers from the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory Ducat lab show.

With $10.65 million of support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Michigan State University is home to one of the nation’s newest Energy Frontier Research Centers. Led by Cheryl Kerfeld, a Hannah Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, the center is exploring how nature compartmentalizes some of its most important biochemical reactions.

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.

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).

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.

Two metabolic pathways introduced into cyanobacteria increase its photosynthesis performance and provide partial protection from negative effects of excess light absorption.