UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Mark Guiltinan, professor of plant molecular biology and J. Franklin Styer Professor of Horticultural Botany, has been named director of the Penn State Plant Institute (PSPI).

As the University’s cross-disciplinary plant sciences research hub within the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, the PSPI connects researchers from diverse fields to study all aspects of plants. The unit’s scope of work ranges from the evolutionary histories, genetics and physical structures of plants to their interactions with other organisms, on scales ranging from the molecular to global. In particular, the PSPI encourages innovative, groundbreaking research that spans multiple scientific fields and prepares future scientists to investigate the most important questions facing a changing planet.

From the basic cellular and molecular biology of plants to development of new plant varieties and strains to large-scale field trials to using plants and plant byproducts, Penn State’s community of plant scientists support a wide array of fields. These include human health, agriculture, renewable energy, the bio-economy and natural resource management. PSPI’s scope of work includes research on trees and forest ecology, as well as with mushrooms and other fungi, which are not technically plants, an industry where Pennsylvania leads the nation.

“We are delighted that Mark has agreed to lead the PSPI. He has an incredible breadth of research expertise; he has led multiple initiatives here at Penn State, and he is respected internationally for his leadership in plant sciences," said Troy Ott, interim director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and incoming dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences. “Penn State is at a crossroads where critical decisions will be needed to ensure that we continue to our long tradition of excellence in plant sciences. Institutes like the PSPI are the epicenters for innovation and evolution of our research, teaching and extension to address the opportunities and challenges. I could not be more pleased that such an accomplished scientist and leader will be directing the institute.”

When Guiltinan joined Penn State in 1991 as an assistant professor of plant molecular biology in the horticulture department of the College of Agricultural Sciences, he immediately joined the Penn State Biotechnology Institute, considered a progenitor to the Huck Institutes.

“I was with Huck from day one as a resident in Wartik Lab,” Guiltinan said.

One of Guiltinan’s enduring contributions to the Huck Institutes’ mission of catalyzing interdisciplinary research was the development and oversight of the 13,900 square foot Plant Science Center, which hosts five faculty groups on the fourth floor of the Huck Life Sciences Building. As director of PSPI, Guiltinan aims to expand on Penn State’s global reputation in collaborative plant science research and education by elevating the University’s capacity to translate discoveries into actionable solutions for society.

“I believe that the faculty of the Plant Sciences Institute will continue to excel in all facets of our land grant mission: research, outreach and education,” Guiltinan said. “To amplify the impact of our work, a heightened emphasis on translating fundamental biological discoveries into solutions for real-world problems is imperative. I will commit to developing applications science as a major focus of the plant institute.”

One important effort currently underway at PSPI is the advancement of an ambitious expansion project dubbed PlantWorks, which aims to add new growth facilities and spin up shared technology centers devoted to plant transformation, artificial intelligence applications in agriculture, phenotyping platforms and more. Guiltinan said he plans to leverage his past experiences in developing three different plant facilities for Penn State to steer PlantWorks from vision to reality, with input from the University’s large plant science community.

“My leadership approach involves engaging as many interested faculty members as possible in developing a shared vision and empowering them to act upon it,” he said.

Over the course of his Penn State career, Guiltinan has been awarded more than $16 million in research funding and is recognized globally for his work with cacao. His portfolio spans a wide range of topics, including gene regulation, starch biosynthesis, plant propagation and functional genomics. 

As co-first author of the first cacao genome-sequencing paper, published in Nature Genetics in 2010, Guiltinan contributed to the discovery of all 28,000 genes in cacao, paving the way to molecular-assisted breeding programs throughout the world. He is currently involved in an industry-led consortium to develop a collection of 200 genome sequences representing the majority of genetic diversity of the species. 

Guiltinan received his doctorate in biology from the University of California, Irvine, in 1986 and his bachelor of science in botany at Humboldt State University in 1978.

As director of the PSPI, Guiltinan succeeds Sally Mackenzie, professor of biology and of plant science and Huck Chair of Functional Genomics. To learn more about Mark Guiltinan and the Penn State Plant Institute, visit his lab or the Huck Institutes website.