Ithaca, New York, USA
September 18, 2018
The Boyce Thompson Institute’s (BTI’s) 2018 class of summer interns wrapped up their summer by presenting research talks and posters at the annual Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) Student Symposium.
Now in its 17th year, BTI’s annual PGRP symposium provides a means for undergraduates and high school students to present their findings in a professional, engaging setting. This year’s symposium was live-streamed by the Institute, allowing supporters to engage with interns from afar.
PGRP Acknowledgements
BTI would like to recognize all faculty, sponsors, principle investigators, mentors, and lab members for their dedication to the PGRP program and this year’s intern class.
The undergraduate internship program is supported by the National Science Foundation through a Research for Undergraduate Experiences (REU) award grant to Georg Jander, BTI Professor and PGRP Project Leader, and Jian Hua, Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell University. The program is also supported by the United States Department of Agriculture through a Research Extension Experience for Undergraduates (REEU) awards to Georg Jander and Scott McArt, Professor in the School of Integrated Plant Sciences.
This year’s high school internship program and symposium was supported by contributions from the Ithaca Garden Club, the J.M. McDonald Foundation, Robert and Roberta Kohut, the Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County, the National Science Foundation’s REU Program, Rheonix Inc., and Carolyn W. Sampson.
Symposium Awards and Winners
A panel of BTI judges selected the 2018 winners for best scientific poster and presentation. The winners and honorable mentions are:
Presentation
- First Place: Evelyn Abraham “Development of tools for structural analysis of plant membrane proteins”
- Runner-Up: Allyson Weir “Functional characterization of the tomato sugar transporter SWEET10”
Undergraduate Poster
- First Place: Christopher Neely “Pan-genomic analysis of Solanum habrochaites, a wild tomato plant”
- Runner-Up: Autumn Hurd “Determining the cause of host specificity of Xanthomonas vasicola pv. musacearum and Xanthamonas vasicola pv. vasculorum”
High School Poster
- First Place: Carolyn Jessop “Aphid produced auxin in the response of Arabidopsis thaliana to aphids”
- Runner-Up: Hayley Ackerman “A QTL containing maize ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE 2 regulates two antifungal metabolites and resistance against a common fungal pathogen, Fusarium graminearum”
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