30 Years of Research Innovations in Forest Biotechnology

Founded in 1988, the Forest Biotech Group (FBG) is dedicated to research innovations in forest biotechnology and molecular genetics of tree metabolism to improve growth, development, and defense against biotic and abiotic stresses. The FBG is based in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, and continues to provide advanced innovations in forest and wood biotechnology.

Research Philosophy

Superior Forestry

Forest trees are essential to the ecosystem and constitute a major renewable resource for the bio-economy. Innovations in forest and wood biotechnology could lead to improved resilience to invasive pests and pathogens, re-forestation of marginal land, adaptation to climate change, and sustainable production of bioenergy and biomaterials.

Our research goal is the domestication of forest trees for conservation and productivity, through a systems-level understanding of tree metabolism and advanced molecular genetics. The molecular and genetic processes that regulate wood formation and tree defense are sufficiently complex to preclude the prediction of genetic modification or genomic breeding, without an integrative systems-level analysis. Therefore, a major focus of our research is an integrative systems approach to understand how tree growth and development is influenced by the forest’s abiotic and biotic components.