To expand our knowledge of the rhizosphere, and to expand collaboration opportunities, CRB has initiated a collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru to promote the newly-created Tambopata Chemical Ecology Institute (TCEI) in Tambopata National Reserve, in southeastern Amazonian Peru. Our first collaboration is funded by a Fulbright scholarship to CRB director Jorge Vivanco and involves increasing the status and visibility of basic scientific research in Peruvian universities. Our second major collaboration is on a Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI), a 10-day workshop on tropical chemical biology to be held in the spring of 2008.

To provide a research environment where students and faculty from diverse disciplines and institutions can freely interact and contribute, CRB has pursued various avenues of funding for collaborative interdisciplinary research, including both federal and private entities. We have also established research internships for various high school students and high school programs, benefiting both local high schools and schools as far away as Uniondale High School in Long Island.

State Science Fair participants recently toured the Center for Rhizosphere Biology, learning about root biology, Arabidopsis plant models, and most importantly, learning how scientists work.

To make our research available and accessible to the public we have developed a seminar series in collaboration with Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture and Cargill Specialty Canola Oils, Inc. We are also putting together an academic trade book on the rhizosphere to be titled Beneath Your Feet: The Secret World of the Rhizosphere.