The Van Eck Lab uses bioengineering approaches to improve crops, such as plants in the genus Physalis, which is home to goldenberry, groundcherry, and tomatillo. Groundcherries and goldenberries have the potential to become more popular crops, but they have some characteristics that make them unsuitable for large-scale farming. Van Eck is leading the Physalis Improvement Project, which aims to improve the cultivation of Physalis plants by crowdsourcing information from volunteer community scientists throughout the United States.
