trueCollege of Natural Science,Plant Biology,Plant Research Laboratory10/31/2022DOE-BER grant seeks new imaging approaches to observe plant-microbe interactions

Michigan State University plant biologist Federica Brandizzi and her team are collaborators with Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on a  a three-year, $507,264 grant from Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program to build new microscopes that allow scientists to look into plant cells like never before. The grant aims to create optical and X-ray multimodal-hybrid microscope systems for live imaging of plant stress responses and microbial interactions.

Val OsowskiDeepak Bhandari, a postdoc in the Brandizzi lab, uses microscopes to study Arabidopsis thaliana for his research under this grant. The Brandizzi lab will provide Arabidopsis thaliana (a common mustard plant) to observe the interactions of these plants with microorganisms, specifically a fungal pathogen. The aim is to understand how the cell surface responds to the invasion of the pathogen. Deepak Bhandari, a postdoc in the Brandizzi lab, uses microscopes to study Arabidopsis thaliana for his research under this grant. facultymultimodal-hybrid microscope systemsplant-microbe interactionpostdoctoral researchersresearch