The Unrestricted Futures Campaign

Hello Friends!

    We're entering the final 10 days of our campaign and from all of us at BTI, we want to thank you for helping us reach 88% of our goal! We'll be working hard to raise the final 12% over the next week.  Please continue to share our message with your colleagues, friends and family, not only because we're looking for more philanthropic support, but because our mission statement includes a commitment to communicating our science to those who stand to benefit from it. 

     One young BTI scientist working hard for everyone's benefit is Penelope Lindsey. Penelope is a grad student in the Harrison lab where she researches the relationship between plant roots and soil fungi. Penelope was recently awarded a 2-year fellowship by the USDA, which will support her work and allow her to share that work at many conferences. (click photo to learn more)  There are dozens of hard-working scientists like Penelope throughout our 15 labs and your generosity benefits both their research and their development as a scientist.  

Thank you again for your standing up for science and advancing research at BTI!

Hello friends! 

     Our campaign is coming off an amazing week! We have now raised 86% of our goal! We are so thankful of all of you who have stepped up for science and pledged your support to advancing discovery science at BTI.  We hope you'll continue to help share our story as we work hard over the next two weeks to raise the remaining 14% of our goal.

     We wanted to offer up another dive into one of the many impressive labs here at BTI so you can meet more of the people you're supporting by giving to our campaign.  This video takes you into the BTI Jander lab where they focus on the relationship between plants/crops and the organisms that like to hurt them.  Did you know that every year, insects kill 15% of the world's corn crop? One VERY cool example of how Jander lab is battling these bugs can be seen in this video featuring the research of Annett Richter. 

     Watch the video below and enjoy the behind the scenes tour of the Jander lab, hosted by postdoctoral scientist, Melkamu Woldemariam.  We thank you again for joining us on the path to discovery and appreciate all you have done to help us make our campaign a success.

Hello Friends of BTI!

We thank you again for your generous support of discovery science at the Boyce Thompson Institute. Your commitment to our research assists scientists like those in Maria Harrison's lab. We thought you might enjoy meeting the lab members and hearing about the work they're doing to address a looming phosphate crisis. Phosphate is crucial to plant/crop growth and our planet is running low.

The Harrison lab is studying the relationship between plant roots and fungi in the soil, where the fungal contribution to the symbiosis includes the transfer of mineral nutrients, particularly phosphorus, from the soil to the plant and the fungi receives carbon from the plant. Consequently, additional phosphate supplied via fungi can have a significant impact on plant development, and this symbiosis influences the structure of plant communities in ecosystems worldwide. Harrison lab continues to work on understanding this relationship in hopes of unlocking scalable solutions to address the depleted phosphate reserves.

Watch the video below to learn more about the lab members and their research!

With just 18 days left in our Unrestricted Futures Campaign, we have surpassed 80% of our goal! We are so thankful to everyone who has generously supported us over the past month and we hope you'll continue to help spread the word of our campaign and help us reach our goal before the end of the year.

We recently did a series of virtual lab tours and we wanted to share one with you so you can see some of the people whose work you're supporting.  This is a video of our greenhouses and growth chambers. You'll learn how much work goes into keeping our plants in the perfect environment for their given experiments.  If temperature controls fail, the greenhouse staff receive an automated call at home. This means they're on call 24/7/365! They, like all of us at BTI, have a real passion for the research we support. We hope you will, too!

Enjoy the tour with our greenhouse manager, Brian! After 30 years at BTI, you might say he knows his way around!

Bob Granados is a BTI professor emeritus. A few years back, Bob was looking at ways to defend crops from the Cabbage Looper.  While conducting this research, Bob discovered the Cabbage Looper could play a role in building a vaccine for humans.  The result was his discovery being used in an HPV vaccine that ensures millions of young women never have to worry about developing cervical cancer.  When you invest in discovery science, you're investing in breakthroughs that arise when you least expect it. When they arise, it's important to have the funding to pursue them.  The Unrestricted Futures Campaign aims to make this kind of funding available.

Click the image above to see a brief video about Bob's breakthrough.

Did you know: Everyday 500 million people in Africa depend on cassava to be a major part of their caloric diet.  That's a massive population and one that's growing rapidly.  Thankfully, a new collaboration will grant BTI access to technology that will allow us to work with African farmers to accelerate cassava breeding.  This is just one of many examples of how the work done at BTI has global impact, and how your support only improves the chances that we can meet the demands of a growing planet.  Thank you.

Our campaign has officially launched! We're so grateful to those who have already stepped up and contributed to discovery science at the Boyce Thompson Institute.  Generous individuals like Andre Jagendof, Dolores Adler, and Eveylyn Berezin will help advance our research and create opportunity for the STEM students of the future. 

We thank our early supporters for leading the charge out of the gates! Please continue to share our campaign with friends and help us raise awareness for the importance of our work.