This photo shows members of Prof. Muszynski’s laboratory doing research at the bench (James Cahill, graduate student in Genetics) and sampling plants in the greenhouse atop the Molecular Biology Building (Jill Stephenson, undergraduate research assistant and senior in Environmental Science).

Professor Michael Muszynski’s overall research goals are to dissect the signaling and regulatory networks which underlie important developmental processes shaping plant morphology and use this information to develop a systems-level understanding of plant growth.  His laboratory uses maize as a model system and combines genetic, genomic, physiological, structure-function and molecular approaches to identify key determinants regulating plant morphology, understand their molecular and biological functions and determine how they interact with other components within larger networks.  As network function becomes better defined, future goals are to use this new knowledge to develop a systems-level understanding of key growth processes.