Guiltinan Lab

Our goal is to provide basic knowledge and technology towards the improvement of crops, poverty and hunger reduction, water resource management, sustainable international development, and climate change on a meaningful scale.

We believe that Agricultural Biotechnology is one of the best tools that can be used to positively impact these needs on a meaningful scale. We have a focus on the use of Arabidopsis and other model species to advance research with tropical crops such as Theobroma cacao, (The Chocolate Tree) and Jatropha curcus, a biofuel feedstock plant.

Our Core Research Areas:

Plant Development
Regulation of Gene Expression
Mechanisms of Plant Defense Responses
Key Metabolic Pathway
Genetic Transformation
Starch Biosynthesis
Crop Improvement

The Guiltinan lab has been active at Penn State since 1991 as part of the Penn State Department of Horticulture. The lab is currently housed in the Plant Science Center on the 4th floor of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Building.