Frontiers and Techniques in Plant Science
July 1 - 22, 2027
Key Dates:
Application Deadline: March 12, 2027
Arrival: July 1st by 6pm EST
Departure: July 22nd 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. The programs are not offered for academic credit or completion of an academic program of study in the U.S.
Instructors
Aman Husbands, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Sharon Kessler, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Ullas Pedmale, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
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.
Target Audience: The CSHL Plant Course is designed primarily for PhD students although postdoctoral scholars early career faculty are occasionally considered. Attendees must work in plant biology and seek to deepen their expertise through intensive, hands-on training. The course is not intended for undergraduate or master's students.
Now in its 45th year, the Frontiers and Techniques in Plant Science course provides an intensive overview of topics in genomics, genetics, physiology, biochemistry, development, and evolution, as well as hands-on experiences in molecular, imaging, computational and high throughput approaches – including an AI workbench for plant biology for analyzing and interpreting big data. The course emphasizes recent results from model organisms including Arabidopsis, Marchantia, and maize as well as a variety of other plants while introducing current methods used in basic and applied plant biology, both theoretically and practically.
The seminar series will include plant morphology and anatomy, development, evolution, photobiology, mechanical biology, hormones, lipid biology, 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, lipid extraction and profiling, cell-type specific gene expression analysis, AI-assisted research and analysis, computational large-scale data analysis, applications of fluorescent proteins including live imaging, genome editing, and chromatin, RNA, and ribosome immunoprecipitation.
Gain hands-on experience in
- Agentic AI tools for analysis, computational tools, and programming
- Plant imaging and image analysis
- Synthetic Biology
- Transcriptomics
- Protoplasting for single cell sequencing and analysis
- Gene network analysis and data visualization tools
- Mathematical modeling of development and hormone action
- Protein and lipid extraction
- Genome editing
- Genome Biology
Prior Year Speakers - 2027 Speakers To Be Determined
Julia Bailey-Serres, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA
Siobhan Brady, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UC Davis, Davis, CA
Jennifer Brophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Robin Buell, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Liam Dolan, Gregor Mendel Institute, Vienna, Austria
Xinnian Dong, Duke University / HHMI, Durham, NC
Margaret Frank, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Niko Geldner, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Dave Jackson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Julie Law, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA
Rob Martienssen, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/HHMI, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Scott McAdam, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Uta Paszkowski, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Nicola Patron, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Ullas Pedmale, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Neelima Sinha, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA
Chris Surridge, Nature, London, United Kingdom
Antoine Taly, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris, France
Robertas Ursache, Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics CRAG, Barcelona, Spain
Justin Walley, Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Xiaosa (Jack) Xu, University of California, Davis, Davis, United States
Support & Stipends:
Major support provided by: National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
We would like to acknowledge the following companies that provided invaluable support:
Andor/Imaris and Nikon Instruments
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): $6,440 USD
No fees are due until you have completed the full application process and are accepted into the course.
Before applying, ensure you have:
- Personal statement/essay;
- Letter(s) of recommendation;
- Curriculum vitae/resume (optional);
- Financial aid request (optional). Stipend requests do not affect selection decisions by the Instructors.
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: