[7] Long spent a year at Harvey Mudd College before becoming one of the first women to attend Caltech in September 1970.
[2] She began her research on plants and symbiosis while a postdoc at Frederick M Ausubel's lab at Harvard University.
She has examined the interactions of Rhizobium bacteria with legumes such as alfalfa, soybeans and peas, in which they enhance nitrogen production.
research uses molecular, genetic, and biochemical techniques to study the early stages of symbiosis between Sinorhizobium meliloti and its host plants in the genus Medicago.
Her group discovered that a flavone (luteolin) derived from alfalfa seed extracts is necessary for activation of nodulation genes (nod ABC) in Sinorhizobium meliloti.
They discovered that plant root hair cells show rapid ionic changes including calcium spiking in response to specific Nod Factors.