For Californian Cristine Kreitzer, it took a trip across the country to encounter a bacterium that has been plaguing her home state for years. Kreitzer, a student at Auburn University, spent her summer researching xylella, which blocks water flow in plants and acts as the culprit behind Pierce's disease, a deadly grapevine pathogen.

Kreitzer was one of 11 undergraduate students to participate in the first Plant Pathology Summer Research Scholars Program at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, N.Y. The program, designed to teach young scholars to plan and conduct experiments, evaluate data and explain their findings, attracted a wide range of applicants from several different regions and academic disciplines.

"We were interested in giving undergraduates an opportunity to see what plant pathology is all about," said Harvey Hoch, chair of the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology.

The eight-week program, which concluded July 29, immersed a select group of students into laboratory and field research focused on agricultural issues.

Eric Newton, a landscape and horticulture student at the University of Southern Maine in Orono, extracted RNA from the herbaceous plant Nicotiana benthamiana to study resistance mechanisms to grapevine fanleaf virus. "I learned lab protocols that I was never exposed to before working in greenhouses as a horticulture student," said Newton.

Newton pointed to the diverse group of scholars as another benefit. He lived with roommates from Maryland and Mississippi and also interacted with scientists from Brazil and Bulgaria.

Benjamin Bartlett, an integrated pest management major at Mississippi State University, was particularly impressed with the collaborative environment at NYSAES. "In a lot of other labs I've been in, people keep to themselves, but here people interact and work together on solutions," said Bartlett.

In the lab, Bartlett worked on a project to develop a variety of grapevines resistant the bacterium that causes Pierce's disease. Similar to how a vaccine works, Bartlett and his colleagues experimented with injecting a weakened version of a grapevine virus as a way to deliver compounds that interfere with the multiplication of the disease-causing bacterium.

"For the student scholars, the program provides them with the opportunity to experience research in many diverse aspects of plant pathology and offers them an appreciation for how it supports agriculture," says Hoch. "Even if they decide not to go into plant pathology, they will have gained a broader knowledge to apply to whatever career they might choose in the future."

In addition to working on their research, the group toured the Ithaca campus as well as Niagara Falls, Watkins Glen and the Corning Museum of Glass.

Isabel Sterne '10 is a student intern at CALS Communications.