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Frontiers and Techniques in Plant Science
June 26 - July 17, 2025

Key Dates:
Application DeadlineMarch 15, 2025
Arrival: June 26th by 6pm EST
Departure: July 17th around 12pm EST

CSHL Courses are intensive, running all day and often including evenings and weekends; students are expected to attend all sessions and reside on campus for the duration of the course.

Instructors:
Emmanuelle Bayer, University of Bordeaux, France
Siobhan Brady
, University of California, Davis
Sharon Kessler
, Purdue University

See the roll of honor - who's taken the course in the past

Follow us on Twitter @cshlplantcourse

Read an article on peer review written by the 2018 students and teaching assistants.

The Frontiers and Techniques in Plant Science course provides an intensive overview of topics in genomics, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, development, and evolution and hands-on experiences in molecular, imaging, computational and high throughput approaches to understanding plant biology. It emphasizes recent results from model organisms including Arabidopsis and maize as well as a variety of other plants and provides an introduction to current methods used in basic and applied plant biology, both theoretically and practically.

The seminar series will include plant morphology and anatomy, development, evolution, light and mechanical biology, hormones, small RNAs and epigenetic inheritance, biotic and abiotic interactions, plant biochemistry, crop domestication, and applications addressing current agronomic problems. Speakers will provide expert overviews of their fields, followed by in-depth discussions of their own work.

The laboratory sessions will provide exposure to cutting edge experimental and computational techniques currently used in plant research. These include approaches for studying plant development, regulatory networks, transient gene expression, cell-type specific gene expression analysis, computational large-scale data analysis, applications of fluorescent proteins including live imaging, genome editing, and chromatin immunoprecipitation.

Gain hands-on experience in:
  • Computational tools and programming
  • Plant imaging and image analysis
  • Synthetic Biology
  • Transcriptomics
  • Single cell sequencing
  • Gene network analysis and data visualization tools
  • Mathematical modeling of development and hormone action
  • Purification of cell-type specific nuclei (INTACT)
  • Genome editing
  • Scientific Publishing

2024 Guest Speakers:
Julia Bailey-Serres, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 
Madelaine Bartlett, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 
Jennifer Brophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 
C. Robin Buell, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 
Roger Deal, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 
Liam Dolan, Gregor Mendel Institute, Vienna, Austria 
Xinnian Dong, Duke University / HHMI, Durham, NC 
Ruben Garrido-Oter, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl-Von-Linne-Weg 10, Germany 
Ueli Grossniklaus, University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland 
Aman Husbands, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 
Dave Jackson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 
Alexander Jones, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
Sharon Kessler, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 
Julie Law, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 
David Mendoza Cozatl, University of Missouri, Columbia, - 
Uta Paszkowski, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
Nicola Patron (EI), Earlham Institute and Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom 
Ullas Pedmale, Co;d Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 
Nicholas Provart, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 
Neelima Sinha, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 
Chris Surridge, SpringerNature, London, United Kingdom 
Robertas Ursache, Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics CRAG, Barcelona, Spain 
Jason Williams, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 
Xiaosa XuUniversity of California, Davis, Davis, CA



Support & Stipends:

Major support provided by: National Science Foundation.

We would like to acknowledge the following companies that provided invaluable support:
Microscopes:
Morrell Instruments Co, Inc, Nikon Instruments, Inc
Equipment:
Bitplane, Thermo Fisher Scientific


Stipends are available to offset tuition costs as follows:

        

Please indicate your eligibility for funding in your stipend request submitted when you apply to the course. Stipend requests do not affect selection decisions made by the instructors.

Cost (including board and lodging): $6,010 USD

No fees are due until you have completed the full application process and are accepted into the course. 

Before applying, ensure you have:
  1. Personal statement/essay;
  2. Letter(s) of recommendation;
  3. Curriculum vitae/resume (optional);
  4. Financial aid request (optional).
    More details.

If you are not ready to fully apply but wish to express interest in applying, receive a reminder two weeks prior to the deadline, and tell us about your financial aid requirements, click below: