Mission
The mission of the Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) is to enhance plant resilience to environmental challenges including extremes in weather and to become a “Center of Excellence” for foundational and translational plant research aimed at stabilizing the productivity and quality of food and energy crops against climate fluctuations and uncertainties.
Purpose
Climate instability threatens agricultural productivity. Stabilizing crop production will require the development of crops that are more resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses including drought, high temperature, flooding, disease (bacterial, fungal, viral) and insect pests.
People
The PRI includes faculty, postdocs, students, and staff from diverse career stages and disciplines (biochemistry, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, microbiology, and pathology), with expertise in both model and crop species, drought and heat adaptation, plant-microbe and plant-insect interactions, microbial ecology, and genomics.
News
New Agricultural Climate Resiliency Program Funds Four Projects
Christine Sprunger, a Plant Resilience Institute faculty member, will serve as the principal investigator for a project funded through the new Agricultural Climate Resiliency Program focused on providing Michigan field crop farmers the information they need to build climate-resilient cropping systems.
Humans of Banbury: Interview with Seung Yon (Sue) Rhee
During the Banbury Center’s October 2023 meeting, “The Future of Plant-Environment Interactions: Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing Climate,” Sue Rhee had an opportunity to speak with Jenna Jacobs from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Banbury Center.
PRI Welcomes Three New Postdoctoral Fellows
Following a series of interviews held during late November and early December, three candidates have been selected to join the Plant Resilience Institute. These candidates will explore new research projects which supplement the ongoing research among the 12 labs in the PRI.