SIPS Plant Biology Section

Without plants, life on earth would cease to exist. Plants shape our environment and provide us with food, medicine, clothing and shelter. Today we are faced with an unprecedented series of challenges — global climate change, food shortages, rapid loss of biodiversity and new and evolving diseases are threatening both the health of the planet as well as human health and well-being.

Through its broad-based and innovative studies of basic plant biology, the Plant Biology section at Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science is positioned to contribute real and impactful solutions to these problems at local, state, national and global scales. Learn more about the history of our section and the vision of our school.

Plant Biology

Center of research on fundamental biology of plant development, signaling, genetics, environmental interactions and systematics.

three people examining a microscopic image

Breadth of research

Development & signaling

Many of our faculty investigate the processes by which plants grow and develop different structures and tissue types.

Breadth of research

Organelle biology

Plant Biology faculty study the biology of chloroplasts and other plant cell organelles, providing insight into ways that photosynthesis and other plant processes might be improved.

Breadth of research

Systematics & evolution

Study of the plant evolution and diversity has a long history at Cornell with experts in many plant families.

Breadth of research

Systems biology

Our faculty are working to model complex biological systems from genes and gene regulation, to proteomics and the evolution of specialized plant compounds.

hands in blue gloves examining plant material
illustration of a protein structure from the van Wijk lab
two women looking at a computer screen
digram of plant metabolism