Christoph Benning is a professor of biochemistry, molecular biology and plant biology in the College of Natural Science. He’s also the director of the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory. He was recently named one of MSU’s University Distinguished Professors in 2019.
Solar panels take sunlight and convert it into electrical energy, plants do something similar. Photosynthesis is how plants make energy-rich compounds, such as vegetable oil that can be converted into biodiesel and jet fuels. Plant leaves take light energy, photons, and turn them into chemical energy which, in this case, is sugar.
Photosynthesis happens in an environment that is changing, to the detriment of plants and humans. The temperature changes are more drastic and violent. One of the intentions is to make plants more resilient and part of this is to make photosynthesis more resilient.
MSU has impacted my research and my life in many positive ways. There’s a lot of interesting, cutting edge science going on in the plants sciences, and that’s what I wanted to do; that’s where I wanted to be.
Reused with permission from WKAR.