David B. Stern, a molecular biologist who studies photosynthesis and the molecular genetics of intracellular communication in plants, has been named president of the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) for Plant Research Inc., the 80-year-old independent laboratory located on the Ithaca campus of Cornell University.

Stern, a senior staff scientist and vice president for research of BTI, had been serving in an interim capacity since March 2004 when the institute's seventh president, Daniel F. Klessig, stepped down due to illness. Stern began his appointment Aug. 1, saying he would maintain and enhance BTI's traditional strengths while working to focus the institute's energies in new areas.

"Boyce Thompson Institute scientists have made major advances over the years in the fields of plant-microbe interactions, plant chemistry and plant development," Stern said, "and these areas continue to evolve and excite us. Looking ahead, BTI will enhance its research mission in fields such as Molecular and Chemical Ecology and Plants and Human Health, in partnership with Cornell, USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and other entities. I also look forward to BTI playing an increasing role in science education at every level from middle school to doctoral studies."

Said Paul Hatfield, chair of the BTI board of directors: "David Stern brings to the presidency an exceptional complement of scientific achievement, leadership and communication skills as well as an exciting vision for the future of BTI."

Cornell's vice provost for life sciences, Kraig Adler, said: "We are delighted that a scientist of such international stature and vision is prepared to lead BTI. The fact that he is a long-term staff member at the institute is an enormous additional benefit."

The institute was founded in 1924 by the American mining magnate William Boyce Thompson, who urged BTI scientists to study "why and how plants grow, why they languish or thrive, how their diseases may be conquered, how their development may be stimulated by the regulation of the elements which contribute to their life."

Originally based in Yonkers, N.Y., the institute moved to the Cornell campus in Ithaca in 1979. The institute has a staff of about 140, including 14 senior scientists, and it conducts some $15 million in research annually, with support from its $80 million endowment supplemented by governmental, corporate and foundation sources.

Stern joined the BTI staff as an assistant scientist in 1989, after completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at University of California-Berkeley, a Ph.D. in biological sciences (1986) at Stanford University, a master's degree in biochemistry (1982) at Cambridge University, and a bachelor's in molecular biology (1981), also at Berkeley.

The author or co-author of more than 95 scientific publications, Stern has served as an editor at the journals Plant Cell and Plant Molecular Biology . He is an adjunct faculty member at Cornell, as are most other BTI senior scientists, and he has taught courses in plant molecular biology and gene regulation. Stern also manages a laboratory group staffed by postdoctoral fellows, international exchange students, technicians, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students.

Stern said BTI would maintain active partnerships with Cornell's academic units, particularly the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, "and with our neighbors across the street, the (USDA/ARS) Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory."