photo of Professor Melcher

Peter Melcher

Professor, Biology
School: School of Humanities and Sciences
Phone: 607-274-3980
Office: Center for Natural Sciences 255, Ithaca, NY 14850
Specialty: Plant Physiology

Office Hours: Spring 2023

Tuesdays & Fridays: 11am – noon or by appointment

Research Interests:

Synthetic biology

Engineering promoters and transforming E. coli to understand how changes in their environment alters RNA polymerase activity.  

Electrophysiology of plants

Measuring slow and fast electric responses in plants in response to changes in light, drought, heat (fire), touch and other stimuli.

Water properties and plant function

Measuring how changes in water properties affect the growth and physiology of algae and small water plants such as azolla.  

Plant Adaptations to Freezing:

Measuring freezing tolerance of deciduous and evergreen tree species. To determine freezing resistance mechanisms, samples are exposed to a suite of temperatures and damage is measured at the tissue-level using respiration and electrolyte leakage methods. Freezing damage of leaves of evergreen species are measured from changes in fluorescence signals from chloroplast photosystems.  

If you interested in conducting research in my lab, then please click below: