Mark Guiltinan is a professor of plant molecular biology in the Department of Horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. He currently runs the Guiltinan Lab, where he studies crop improvement and sustainable farming methods. Guiltinan was a key player in The International Cocoa Genome Sequencing Consortium, a worldwide effort to sequence and analyze the genome of the Criollo variety of the Theobromo cacao plant, the key ingredient in high-quality chocolate. Using genome sequencing programs and computer clusters at Penn State and abroad, Guiltinan and his colleagues have mapped the cacao genome and are working to breed better, more disease-resistant cacao plants.
View the original article here: Chocolate genome research good for farmers, environment, sweet lovers
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