Justin Walder (Widhalm lab) presented his research from his Summer College of Agriculture Research Fellowship (SCARF) project at the 2025 Purdue Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. His poster was titled “Engineering flux through the MVA Pathway to Enhance Terpenoid Synthesis in Tomato” and he was mentored by Widhalm lab postdoc Dr. Mearaj Shaikh.
Shoshana Keim (undergraduate student in the Widhalm lab) presented her research on the metabolic mechanisms preventing juglone autotoxicity in black walnut at the Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference and the Department of Biochemistry Undergraduate Poster session this month. Shoshana has been a member of the Widhalm lab for two years with mentoring from PhD student George…Read more about Widhalm Lab Undergrad Presented Poster at Undergrad Research Conference[Read More]
Esperanza Zambrano (Widhalm lab) presented at the 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Espi is a visiting student from Texas A&M University Kingsville who participated in the 2024 Purdue Undergraduate Research Experiences for Plant Biology and Data Science (PURE-PD) program. She was mentored by PhD student George Meyer.
Widhalm lab undergraduate research students Shoshana Keim and Lauryn Rhodes each received CATE Undergraduate Research Funding awards from the College of Agriculture. Shoshana and Lauryn are working on separate projects to investigate juglone metabolism alongside their graduate student mentor, George Meyer.
Lauren Harmon, an undergraduate HLA student working with the Widhalm Lab, has been awarded $500 from the Purdue College of Agriculture’s Office of Academic Programs to offset the cost of her undergraduate research project. Congratulations Lauren!
Thiti Suttiyut, Scott Benzinger, Rachel McCoy, and Josh Widhalm published a chapter in Methods in Enzymology titled “Strategies to study the metabolic origins of specialized plant metabolites: The specialized 1, 4-naphthoquinones.”
Widhalm laboratory undergraduate student Libby Sorenson presents at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Libby spent the summer working in the Widhalm laboratory as part of the Purdue Undergraduate Research Experiences for Plant Biology and Data Science (PURE-PD) program. She was mentored by HLA graduate student George Meyer to investigate plant resistance mechanisms to the allelochemical juglone.
Over the summer, the Widhalm laboratory members were busy presenting their research across the country. Graduate student Thiti Suttiyut presented his work on shikonin metabolism and helped organize the phytochemical section at Botany 2022 (Botanical Society of America) in Anchorage, Alaska from July 24th – 27th. Graduate student George Meyer presented his work on juglone…Read more about Widhalm Laboratory Members Present at Summer Research Conferences[Read More]
Thiti Suttiyut, Manoj Ghaste, and Joshua Widhalm along with others from the Purdue Center for Plant Biology published a paper in Horticulture Research entitled “Integrative analysis of the shikonin metabolic network identifies new gene connections and reveals evolutionary insight into shikonin biosynthesis. The paper is available online: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhab087.