News & Announcements

Jedaidah Chilufya selected as 2019 Cunin/Sigal Award recipient by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University has a rich collection of legume trees from all over the world. However, underneath these trees are a treasure of beneficial soil bacteria called rhizobia that are overlooked. These rhizobia interact with tree legumes to provide nitrogen biofertilizer for their successful long-term growth. Unlike legume crops such as peanut and soybean which, are short-lived, the long-living tree legumes likely have rhizobia with special traits to ensure successful long-term interaction and improved crop growth.

Jedaidah Chilufya is interested in boosting the agronomic potential of legume crops in this northeast region by identifying rhizobia that will help improve crop production. She has been selected as a 2019 Cunin/Sigal Award recipient to recover rhizobia from legume trees and identify new legume crop-rhizobia for improved plant growth and production. This study has the potential to identify efficient rhizobia strains for farmers to use in this region on agriculturally important legumes.

Anne Averill Contributes to Gazette Story "Citizen ‘beecologists’ digging into pollinator decline mystery"

Professor Anne L. Averill, Environmental Conservation, comments in a story about efforts to find out why the number of pollinators is in decline in North America. Read more

We are pleased to announce the following PB PhD thesis defense

Sandra Romero-Gamboa
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
11:00 AM
Location: LSL S340
Thesis Title: Brachypodium distachyon GNRF, SWAM1, and SWAM4 are transcriptional regulators of secondary cell wall biosynthesis.
Thesis Advisor: Sam Hazen

Elsbeth Walker's Research Featured in "The Scientist"

Professor Elsbeth Walker's research studying how iron transport works in plants is featured in "The Scientist." Her findings, she says, could help researchers genetically engineer corn and other staple grains to take in more iron and ultimately deliver it to people who lack sufficient iron in their diets. Read more

Sam Hazen's Contributions to Scientific Entrepreneurship Featured in UMass Magazine Story: After Eureka

Scary though it may seem, Baima and other UMass scientists can be bold in their entrepreneurial efforts—the UMass Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) has their backs. IALS was launched in 2015 to help turn scientific discoveries into marketable products that improve human health and well-being.

IALS works in step with the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship at the Isenberg School of Management, with the office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement through its Office of Technology Transfer and the UMass Innovation Institute, and other entities to fortify the campus start-up culture. The interdisciplinary institute includes 250 faculty from 28 academic departments and manages unique resources. These include state-of-the-art equipment organized into core facilities accessible to academic labs and industry alike, interdisciplinary lab space organized into research themes that allow faculty from different departments and even from different colleges to work close together, and lab space for start-up companies. Faculty, students, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs mingle in the institute’s conference spaces. To operate IALS, the university contributed more than $60 million in capital funds and operational support. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself is behind IALS, having invested $95 million through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Read more

Professor Sam Hazen's Contributions to Scientific Entrepreneurship Featured in UMass Magazine Story: After Eureka

UMass Amherst Study Looks at Drought and Virus Impact on Plant Roots and Soil Carbon

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently awarded biogeochemist Marco Keiluweit, assistant professor of soils and the environment in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his collaborators elsewhere, two grants to study how climate change affects the capacity of soils to remove carbon from the atmosphere and retain enough nutrients for food production.

In particular, the teams will investigate climate change-related effects of drought and virus infection in plants, and their interaction with soils. Keiluweit and colleagues received $200,000 and $300,000 exploratory research awards from DOE’s Biological and Environmental Research program, which supports “high-risk, high-reward” research, the soil chemistry expert says. Read more

Research Team Led by Jungwoo Lee Studies Dormant Cancer Cells in the Body And What Type of Environment Causes them to Reawaken

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are developing microenvironments that allow them to study how cancer cells that move around in the human body change from dormant to active and what causes or prevents that change. Understanding this process, the researchers say, could lead to new treatments that prevent cancer from metastasizing throughout the body. Read more

9 Plant Biology Graduate Students Awarded Lotta M. Crabtree Fellowships for Spring 2019

Plant Biology Graduate students Kelly Allen, Rebecca Brennan, Jedy Chilufya, Stavroula Fili, Harry Klein, Ian McCahill, Jarrett Man, Christina Stonoha, and Xiang Li have been awarded Lotta M. Crabtree Fellowships to support their work in the Spring 2019 semester. The Lotta M. Crabtree Fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis.

Li-Jun Ma, Anne Gershenson, and Robert Wick Featured for: Science Scene: ‘Studying basil diseases to help U.S. producers’

Researchers combine techniques to protect sweet basil from pathogens. What’s the big idea? Basil is the most important commercially grown herb crop in the United States; its essential oils are used in applications from medicine to skin care products and soft drinks. Currently basil production in the U.S. is threatened by the recently introduced plant pathogens Peronospora belbahrii, which causes downy mildew, and Fusarium oxysporum, which causes Fusarium wilt. Read more

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