Stephen Kresovich, professor of plant breeding and director of the Institute for Genomic Diversity at Cornell, has been named director of the university's Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies.

The newly named institute, previously known as the Cornell Biotechnology Program, includes the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology (CAT) and has a renewed focus on promoting research, education, and technology transfer for applications in agriculture, industry, environment, and medicine. Kresovich's five-year term as director begins today (Nov. 1).

"We will continue to be a key resource for research in biotechnology – the management of biological systems to serve human needs – while expanding the university's capabilities in life science technologies for their application to address important societal needs, using the basic principles of biology, physics, chemistry and engineering," said Kresovich.

Established in 1984, Cornell's interdisciplinary biotechnology program involves faculty, students and researchers in the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, and Human Ecology, as well as Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. The biotechnology program is linked with the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory on the Ithaca campus, as well as the university's Nanobiotechnology Center, Center for the Environment, Theory Center, Cornell Nanofabrication Facility and Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source.

Resources of the biotechnology institute also are available to industry scientists, through an industry affiliates program. The New York state-funded CAT supports research programs and facilitates the flow of information and transfer of technology from the university to industry, including new and growing companies in the state. From its headquarters in the Biotechnology Building, the institute provides administrative support for the Cornell Genomics Initiative, Institute for Genomic Diversity, Program for Comparative Genomics, Program for Plant Cell and Molecular Biology and the Technology Innovation Laboratory. It operates a range of facilities and services, including DNA and protein sequencing, DNA synthesis, genotyping, imaging and computing.

Kresovich joined the Cornell faculty CALS in 1998 after serving as the supervisory geneticist at the USDA/ARS Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit at the University of Georgia. He earned his Ph.D. in physiology and genetics from Ohio State University in 1982 and conducted research at Battelle Memorial Institute and Texas A&M University. He had worked at Cornell previously, as a supervisory geneticist at the USDA, ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit at Geneva from 1987 to 1993.

Operations of the institute are reviewed by a scientific administrative board, composed of Charles F. Aquadro, professor of molecular biology and genetics; Jon C. Clardy, professor of chemistry and chemical biology; Gary E. Harman, professor of horticultural science; Stephen H. Hilgartner, associate professor of science and technology studies; Michael I. Kotlikoff, professor of biomedical sciences; June B. Nasrallah, professor of plant biology; David G. Russell, professor of microbiology and immunology; and Michael L. Shuler, professor of chemical engineering.