Pictures are linked to hi-res scans Denise Duclos receives the Barbara McClintok award presented by Thomas Björkman.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 22, 2005

Contact: Linda McCandless, (607) 254-5137, email llm3@cornell.edu

GENEVA, NY: Denise Duclos, a Cornell University graduate student in the department of horticultural sciences at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, has been named a recipient of the Barbara McClintock award. Duclos works with vegetable crop physiologist, Thomas Björkman.

The Barbara McClintock Award is a new graduate student award supported by the Barbara McClintock Fund, an endowment of the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences named in honor of Cornell plant geneticist Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize for her work on transposons. The endowment for the award came from Robert Rabson, who enabled much novel plant physiology research through his long leadership of the Department of Energy's Energy Biosciences Division.

Graduate students in any of the six plant science graduate fields at Cornell—horticulture, plant biology, plant breeding, plant pathology, plant protection, and soil and crop sciences—are eligible for the award.

There were multiple applicants from all the plant science fields. Four awards were made. Duclos was the only one from the field of horticulture. Each student received a certificate along with $2000 to be used toward their research or for travel to a conference.

“Denise's research is on the control of reproductive development in Brassica, with a focus on the control of head formation in broccoli,” said Björkman. “ She is investigating the role of homeotic genes in determining when the meristem, which is the cauliflower curd, differentiates to flowers, making the broccoli head. Her goal is to broaden the range of adaptation for these increasingly popular crops so that they can be widely grown in New York.

“Denise's project takes a molecular approach to a horticultural problem, a great example of Cornell's strength in combining excellence in horticulture with excellence in plant biology,” Bjorkman went on to say. “This award will enable her to further explore research themes of her own devising.”

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