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
A Graphic Novel Plants Seeds of Scientific Curiosity in Michigan Classrooms
PRI Associate Director David Lowry is partnering with the MSU College of Education and teachers to bring the "Mystery of the Monkeyflower" into middle and high school classrooms across Michigan.
MSU Plant Scientists Unite Global Community to Call for Advancing Plant Resilience
Plant and agricultural sciences must make rapid and significant changes to ensure global food security in the face of climate change, according to a Michigan State University-led international group of plant researchers.
MSU’s New Plant and Environmental Sciences Building Critical to Advancing Climate-Resilient Plants
The Plant and Environmental Sciences Building (PESB) is officially under construction, accelerating climate-critical discoveries and advancing MSU’s excellence in food security. PESB will be the home of PRI when construction is complete in 2026.