The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded the Michigan State University-DOE Plant Research Laboratory (PRL) an $11.25 million DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) competitive renewal…
MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory scientists are refining our understanding of how light wavelengths impact how plants develop their chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are the ‘engines’ of plants. They use light from…
Electrons are tough to pin down in biology. Learning how to harness electrons is no fool’s errand because, when electrons move, they are the electricity that powers life….
MSU assistant professor Berkley Walker’s DNA synthesis proposal has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility,…
Just as brakes are essential to a car whizzing down a highway, plants rely on special proteins to maintain high rates of photosynthesis without crashing. The big picture is this. Photosynthesis is…
Photosynthesis is the process that powers life on earth. Photosynthetic organisms capture energy from sunlight, which they use to tear carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. The carbon ends…
The Benning lab has identified a rhomboid-like protein that may help plant chloroplasts tune their lipid production. The study is published in The Plant Journal. Lipids are molecules…
Unlike animals, plants can’t run away when things get bad. That can be the weather changing or a caterpillar starting to slowly munch on a leaf. Instead, they…
Michigan State University scientists have discovered a significant role that a particular protein complex plays in the process of photosynthesis, potentially changing how scientists study the process entirely….
For all their convenience, plastics are massive environmental headaches. “The main problem is that most synthetic plastic is not completely biodegradable. It cannot be broken down by living…
Research at Michigan State University