University of North Texas

Joe Louis, left, doctoral student in plant molecular biology, is one of five students in the country chosen to receive the 2010 John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award by the Entomological Society of America. The award is designed to promote interest in entomology at the graduate level.

His research, conducted as a part of the UNT Signaling Mechanisms in Plants research cluster under the guidance of Jyoti Shah, graduate advisor and associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, involved the study of plant genes that allow plants to defend against green peach aphids, which could facilitate the development of plants that are resistant to aphids and thus reduce the need for toxic insecticides.

Louis will receive the award at the society's annual meeting in December, where he will present two scientific papers, one published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions in May and another that was recently accepted by The Plant Journal.