Recent funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is being used to further understanding of cotton plant development and purchase a laser microdissection system.

The award will support the investigation of a fungal endophyte that grows naturally on corn.

Calvin Henard’s work is backed by a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Agile BioFoundry.

This first-of-its-kind study will establish a new concept for producing valuable fungal products and may ultimately lead to medicines that can be delivered in plant seeds, eliminating downstream processing.

Four senior design students in the Department of Biomedical Engineering are working to help a six-year boy be able to play, which he often is too weak to do. For their capstone project, they are designing an upper-body orthosis using equipment in UNT's Biomedical Makerspace at Discovery Park to help the patient who has NUBPL, an extremely rare, progressive neurodegenerative disease. The project...

Researchers in Richard Dixon’s lab have been studying C-lignin, a type of fiber in the seed coats of certain exotic plants, since his team member Fang Chen discovered it in 2011. Helping plants produce C-lignin could lead to crops that are useful for creating an economically feasible plant-based jet fuel, among other applications.

A team of students from UNT’s Texas Academy of Mathematics and Sciences, mentored by UNT BioDiscovery Institute’s Calvin Henard and Mauricio Antunes, is the first group from UNT to participate in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The team genetically modified bacteria to mitigate greenhouse gases.

Kent Chapman and Mina Aziz, researchers at UNT’s BioDiscovery Institute, have received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to look at how plants talk to their neighbors -- specifically the role of fatty acid amide hydrolases, which exist broadly in plants, in communication between plants and microorganisms.

Calvin Henard researches methanotrophic bacteria to convert methane gas into bioplastics, biofuels and other valuable products, rather than allow it to be released into the atmosphere.

Lately, Phil Samson has been pouring over scientific research papers from scholars in UNT’s College of Science. Though the studio art graduate student in the College of Visual Arts and Design has no background in science, he’s found the research to be quite an artistic muse.

Kent Chapman, Regents Professor of biological sciences and director of UNT’s BioDiscovery Institute, was recently awarded the 2021 Fellow of ASPB Award by the American Society of Plant Biologists.

A UNT College of Science professor has moved researchers across the globe closer to understanding how to make condensed tannins in forage crops such as alfalfa, not only making food more nutritious for animals, but potentially improving food supply and limiting global warming.

A UNT researcher is working to knock out a crop fungus that could improve food availability for future generations. Jyoti Shah, chair of the biological sciences department, and his team are working to identify genes in the wheat plant that may make it susceptible to Fusarium head blight. Reducing activity of these genes makes the wheat plant more resistant to the disease.

Kent Chapman, Regents Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and Ashley Cannon, a former UNT postdoctoral scholar and research molecular biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are illuminating how heterotrimeric G-Proteins are involved in N-Acylethanolamine (NAE) signaling in plants — findings that could have major implications for the future of agriculture.

New discoveries in the laboratory of Richard Dixon could help develop biomass crops better suited for processing into products such as aviation fuel, plastics and other industrial products.

Pamela Padilla, associate vice president of research and innovation, and three of her Ph.D. students are using the C. elegans genetic model system to study how genes function in hyperglycemia, a leading indicator of Type 2 diabetes. Rajeev Azad, associate professor of mathematics, also is a collaborator on the project and is using computational tools to analyze the resulting large data sets.

Jantana Keereetaweep (’15), an assistant biochemist in the biology department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, won the Paul K. Stumpf Award, given to early career scientists, from the International Symposium on Plant Lipids.

A new study co-led by Rajeev Azad, associate professor of bioinformatics, looks at how plants respond to different types of stress at the same time — something that previously has not been studied in depth. A better understanding could help develop more resilient plants, which is much needed as climate change continues to accelerate.

Biological Sciences Professor Kent Chapman has spent 27 years as an educator and researcher exploring the intricacies of plant biochemistry, specifically lipids. Jantana Keereetaweep spent seven years researching with Chapman while earning her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UNT.

Researchers at UNT in conjunction with scientists at the Huazhong Agricultural University in China, recently developed a complete map for the genome of the jojoba tree.