August 10, 2009
By Isabel Sterne
For California native Cristine Kreitzer, it took a trip across the country to encounter a bacterium that has been plaguing her home state for years. Kreitzer, a student at Auburn University, spent her summer researching Xylella, which blocks water flow in plants and acts as the culprit behind Pierce’s disease, a deadly grapevine pathogen.
Christopher Bentley
Summer research scholar Ann Fisher, an undergraduate at St. John Fisher College, examines developing plants that have been genetically transformed to resist plant disease.
She is one of 11 undergraduate students to participate in the first-ever Plant Pathology Summer Research Scholars Program at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES). The program, designed to teach young scholars to plan and conduct experiments, evaluate data, and explain their findings, attracted a wide range of applicants from several different regions and academic disciplines.
“We were interested in giving undergraduates an opportunity to see what plant pathology is all about,” said Harvey Hoch, chair of the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Department.
The program immerses a select group of students into laboratory and field research focused on agricultural issues. Scholars were chosen based on their academic record, scientific interests, and career goals. During the eight-week program, which concluded July 29, students received a $3,800 stipend, in addition to allowances for housing, food, and transportation costs.
Eric Newton, a landscape and horticulture student at the University of Southern Maine in Orono, gained invaluable laboratory experience. He extracted RNA from the herbaceous plant, Nicotiana benthamiana, in order to study resistance mechanisms to Grapevine fanleaf virus. “I learned lab protocols that I was never exposed to before working in greenhouses as a horticulture student,” said Newton.
Newton pointed to the diverse group of scholars as another benefit. He lived with roommates from Maryland and Mississippi and also interacted with scientists from Brazil and Bulgaria.
Benjamin Bartlett, an integrated pest management major at Mississippi State University, was particularly impressed with the collaborative environment at NYSAES. “In a lot of other labs I’ve been in, people keep to themselves, but here people interact and work together on solutions,” said Bartlett.
In the lab, Bartlett worked on a project to develop a variety of grapevines resistant to Pierce’s disease. Similar to how a vaccine works, Bartlett and his colleagues experimented with injecting a weakened version of the virus into plants to deliver a small amount of compounds to kill the disease-causing bacteria.
In addition to their research, the group toured the Ithaca campus as well as station labs and greenhouses. They also interacted on trips to Niagara Falls, Watkins Glen, and the Corning Museum of Glass. Along with the summer scholars program, NYSAES also hosted more than 100 students during the summer, including many local undergraduates from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, whose work is supported by grants and other funding sources.
“For the student scholars, the program provides them with the opportunity to experience research in many diverse aspects of plant pathology and offers them an appreciation for how it supports agriculture,” says Hoch. “Even if they decide not to go into plant pathology, they will have gained a broader knowledge to apply to whatever career they might choose in the future.”
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