Plant Physiology – Editorial Board and Staff

Yunde Zhao (Editor in Chief)

Professor – Section of Cell and Developmental Biology

Yunde Zhao received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Michigan and his postdoctoral training in plant genetics at the Salk Institute, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation.

Associate Editors

Diane Bassham

Professor - Iowa State University

Diane Bassham is a plant cell biologist researching vesicle trafficking and autophagy in plants. Over the past 10 years she has analyzed the process of autophagy and identified mechanisms and physiological roles of autophagy in plants, in particular under environmental stress conditions. She is interested in understanding the regulatory pathways that control activation of autophagy under different conditions. She also studies mechanisms of vesicle transport to the plant vacuole with a focus on the protein complexes that drive vesicle fusion at the trans-Golgi network.

(BIO)

Juan Dong

Associate Professor, Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Juan Dong studies molecular mechanisms underlying cell polarization and asymmetric cell division in plants. Her research has been focusing on the characterization of intracellular signaling events that establish cell-fate asymmetry during stomatal lineage development. She is also interested in cellular processes that establish cell polarity in the cytoplasm and transcriptional activities that maintain stem-cell behavior in plants.

BIO

Graham Farquhar

Professor - Australian National University College of Science

Graham Farquhar studies leaf gas exchange, including stomatal and mesophyll conductance, as well as processes underlying photosynthesis, carbon isotope discrimination, and oxygen isotope enrichment in leaf water and organic matter. He also models these processes. He is interested in water-use efficiency of plant growth, in the extension of leaf properties to the canopy, and in global change, particularly processes affecting evaporative demand and rainfall.

(BIO)

Matt Gilliham

Director, Waite Research Institute, University of Adelaide

Matt studies transport and signalling processes that underpin improvements in crop nutrition and stress tolerance. His research scales from genetics, through cell biology and whole plant physiology. Where applicable, his lab's fundamental research is then applied through plant breeding to modify signaling and transport processes in plants to improve crop yield and quality in the field, in protected cropping and for space exploration. His main areas of study include salinity tolerance, anionic nutrition (particularly chloride) and GABA signaling.

BIO

Alain Goossens

VIB University of Gent Plant Systems Biology

Alain Goossens' interests encompass phytohormone signaling and gene discovery in plant specialized metabolism. His current research focuses on jasmonate signaling and the mechanisms by which it affects plant growth and metabolism in response to environmental cues. His interests in gene discovery extend to developing novel tools for plant metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Over the last ten years, he has worked with a variety of model plants, including Arabidopsis and Medicago, as well as the crop plant tomato and medicinal plants that produce high-value bioactive molecules, such as Catharanthus, Taxus, and Artemisia.

(BIO)

Andrew Hanson

University of Florida, Agricultural Sciences

Professor Andrew Hanson has worked for >30 years on plant and microbial metabolic biochemistry and engineering, mainly in relation to primary pathways. His research experience includes crop stress metabolism, amino acid and sulfur metabolism, B vitamin metabolism, metabolite damage and repair pathways, and more recently the use of synthetic biology in metabolic engineering. His research is guided by the aim of utility to agriculture and the bioeconomy.

(BIO)

Ning Jiang

Ning Jiang researches plant transposable elements and their role in genome evolution. Her interests include the abundance, structure, and activity of transposable elements and their interaction with plant genes. Ning pays particular attention to a special group of transposable elements called Pack-MULEs, which refer to Mutator-like elements carrying gene or gene fragments that have the potential to serve as independent genes or modify nearby genes. Ning is also interested in developing novel tools/pipelines to rapidly annotate transposable elements.

BIO

Joachim Kopka

Research Group Leader "Applied Metabolome Analysis" - Department of Molecular Plant Physiology Max Planck Institute

(BIO)

Teun Munnik

Head Plant Cell Biology, Green Life Sciences, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam

Teun Munnik's research centers on phospholipid metabolism and plant stress signalling. His work has proven seminal in establishing a role for the lipid second messengers, phosphatidic acid (PA), diacylglycerolpyrophosphate (DGPP) and various polyphosphoinositides (PPIs). Much of his current research focuses on the functional characterization of the lipid kinases and phospholipases involved in lipid signaling, and on their regulation. He has developed techniques to visualize all these events using FP-tagged enzymes, targets and lipid biosensors in living cells. He is also interested in the cellular control of vesicular trafficking (endo-/exocytosis) during plant stress and development.

(BIO)

Graham Noctor

University of Paris, Institute of Plant Sciences

Graham Noctor works on the role of redox state in the regulation of plant metabolism in responses to the environment, with an emphasis on stress. Focal points of his research include interactions between photosynthetic metabolism and light energy capture, manipulation of glutathione status in plants, and the roles of mitochondrial electron transport in the regulation of leaf metabolism. His current research continues a longstanding interest on the importance of glutathione in stress responses, with a recently developed focus on biotic challenge. He is also exploring the specific roles of different NAD(P)-linked systems in influencing the outcome of plant responses to stress.

(BIO)

Markus Schwarzländer

University of Münster, Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology

Markus Schwarzländer researches how energy is regulated in plants. His specific interest is the role of mitochondria in those flexible control mechanisms that operate during rapid environmentally-induced transitions associated with stress and stress recovery, early seed germination, and changes in light. His laboratory has been developing strategies using optogenetic biosensors to study energy regulation, signaling, and solute transport in vivo and in real time and with subcellular resolution. The work has delivered insights into the functional flexibility of plant tissues, cells and organelles, with respect to their membrane energization, metabolism, thiol-based redox regulation, calcium transport and ATP homeostasis.

BIO

Nick Smirnoff

Biosciences, University of Exeter

Nick Smirnoff’s long term research interest is in the metabolism and functions of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in plants. His laboratory has discovered the biosynthetic pathway of ascorbate and more recently are focusing on control of its synthesis and accumulation in relation to light and its role in photoprotection of photosynthesis. Nick is more generally interested in the roles of antioxidants and reactive oxygen species. Biochemical and molecular genetics approaches are used, focusing on Arabidopsis thaliana as well as algae and cyanobacteria. He is director of the Exeter Mass Spectrometry Facility, which focusses on small molecule analysis.

BIO

Keiko U. Torii

Molecular Biosciences, College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas

Keiko Torii studies how plant cells coordinate proliferation and differentiation during organ morphogenesis to generate beautiful, orderly patterns. She is keen to elucidate the molecular and genetic bases of cell-cell communication and regulatory networks specifying organ size, shape, and stomatal patterning. She is also interested in elucidating the mechanisms regulating asymmetric division, stem cell renewal and differentiation within the stomatal cell lineages.

(BIO)

Jixian Zhai

Department of Biology, Southern University of Science and Technology

Jixian Zhai researches plant epigenetics, the roles of non-coding RNA, DNA methylation, and chromatin modifications in development and physiology. He has a strong interest in developing high-throughput technologies, integrating both “wet lab” and “dry lab” techniques. He collaborates broadly with a focus on “data-driven, hypothesis-generating” research in the big-data era.

BIO

Jianhua Zhang

BIO

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Monitoring Editors

Jean-Michel Ané

Professor - Department of Bacteriology and Agronomy University of Wisconsin

Jean-Michel Ané divides his time at the University of Wisconsin – Madison between the departments of Bacteriology and Agronomy. His primary research interest is understanding the molecular mechanisms allowing efficient symbiotic associations between plants and microbes and its benefits to agriculture. His current research addresses (1) the genetic and molecular mechanisms that allow mycorrhizal and nitrogen-fixing associations across land plants, and (2) the evolution of critical innovations that enabled the development of these associations. He is keen to use this knowledge in engineering efficient associations between crops and microbes relevant to food, feed and biofuel production.

(BIO)

Shin-ichi Arimura

Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Graduate School of Agricultural & Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo

Shin-ichi Arimura started his research with the molecular cellular biology of mitochondrial fission and live-cell imaging for mitochondrial fusion in plants. Recently, he has mainly focused on developing gene-editing methods to modify stubborn plastid and mitochondrial genomes, in order to unleash the potential of these unused genetic systems for future breeding.

(BIO)

Antony Bacic

Professor - Latrobe Institute for Agriculture and Food School of Life Sciences

Tony Bacic’s major research interest is in the role of plant cell walls in growth and development, cell surface mechano-sensing, wall modelling and biotechnological applications of cell walls. This includes the structure, function and biosynthesis of complex carbohydrates: polysaccharides and glycoproteins/proteoglycans. To address these biological questions he employs cell biological and molecular approaches including high-throughput functional genomics platform technologies (glycomics/ proteomics/ metabolomics/transcriptomics).

(BIO)

Tim Brodribb

Associate Professor - University of Tasmania School of Biological Sciences

Tim Brodribb’s research examines the evolution of plant systems involved in the regulation of plant hydration. Using a combination of techniques ranging from whole-plant to molecular scale he explores functional integration between water transport tissues and stomatal control, explaining how plants have successfully managed to live on dry land for over 400 million years. His work has provided new insights into stomatal and xylem function, linking anatomy and physiology together to explain patterns in ecology and evolution.

(BIO)

Clay Carter

Department of Plant & Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota

Clay Carter’s major research interest is in the molecular basis of plant-biotic interactions, with a focus on the evolution, development, and biochemistry of nectaries and nectars. This includes the genes underlying nectary formation, the mechanisms of nectary synthesis and secretion, and the hormonal signaling pathways that coordinate these processes in relation to floral maturation. He also studies how specific metabolites and proteins are selectively secreted into nectars, including ones that defend against microbial pathogens.

(BIO)

Zhong-Hua Chen

Professor - School of Science, Western Sydney University, Australia

Zhong-Hua Chen works on plant abiotic stress tolerance using physiological, evolutionary, comparative genomic, and molecular approaches. Much of his work has centered on the electrophysiological and molecular characterization of membrane transporters and ion channels for stomatal regulation, ion homeostasis and signaling transduction in plants. He has strong interests in the improvement of salinity, drought, and heavy metal tolerance in cereal crops.

(BIO)

Lily Cheung

Assistant Professor, Roy & Polly Sheffield Faculty Fellow, Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Lily Cheung is a trained chemical engineer who developed a passion for plant biology during her postdoctoral work at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Her lab at Georgia Tech designs biomolecular and computational tools to quantify and model sugar transport, from the cellular to the whole-plant scale.

(BIO)

Maheshi Dassanayake

Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University

Maheshi Dassanayake explores how genomes and gene expression can be used to investigate plant responses to environmental stress, development, and evolution. Her lab uses computational and molecular genetics methods to assemble genomes; compare genomes and transcriptomes; understand functional genomic units; and propose evolutionary mechanisms underlying adaptive traits. She is broadly interested in comparative, functional, and evolutionary genomics and especially focuses on wild or extremophyte species to study novel pathways which have evolved in stress-adapted species to survive saline environments.

BIO

Karl-Josef Dietz

Universitat Bielefeld Plant Biochemistry and Physiology

The research of Karl-Josef Dietz deals with molecular acclimation to abiotic stress (light, heat, heavy metals). Focus is given to the redox regulatory signaling network (peroxiredoxins, thioredoxins, thiol target proteins, redox proteomics, reactive oxygen species), cellular signal transmission and integration including retrograde signaling from the chloroplast, and transcriptional networks and transcription factors. In addition, the group uses methods of single cell manipulation and analysis, including various fluorescence marker technologies.

(BIO)

Qiaohong Duan

College of Horticulture Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, China

Qiaohong Duan studies the molecular mechanisms underlying fertilization events in flowering plants, particularly the Cruciferous family vegetable plants, under normal and complex situations as encountered in nature. Qiaohong’s research combines physiological, molecular, genetics, and biochemical approaches. She is also interested in transforming her mechanistic findings into breeding techniques.

(Bio)

Daniel Ducat

Plant Research Laboratory and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Michigan State University

Daniel (Danny) Ducat researches photosynthetic processes focusing on cyanobacteria and engineering strategies that promise applications of cyanobacteria as an alternative crop species. His fundamental interest is in how cyanobacteria integrate native and heterologous metabolic demands (total "sink" metabolism), and the mechanisms used to balance energetic needs with an appropriate absorption of solar inputs ("source"). Danny also explores the bioproductive potential cyanobacteria, especially through the engineering of synthetic cyanobacteria/heterotroph microbial communities.

(BIO)

Matthias Erb

Professor - Institute of Plant Sciences University of Bern

Matthias Erb studies how plants interact with their biotic environment. His work focuses on the role of plant specialized metabolites and plant defense signals in plant-herbivore and plant-plant interactions. He combines various techniques ranging from analytical chemistry to molecular biology and behavioral ecology to elucidate the functions and effects of volatile and non-volatile defense metabolites in the rhizo- and the phyllosphere.

(BIO)

Christian Fankhauser

Center for Integrative Genomics, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne

The Fankhauser laboratory studies how the light environment modulates plant growth and development throughout the life cycle of the plant. We use molecular genetics, photobiology, genomics, cell biology and biochemistry in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to decipher the signaling events occurring upon photon capture. We focus on mechanisms enabling plants to gain access to sunlight in low light environment such as phototropism and shade avoidance. We have identified key steps in phototropin and phytochrome-mediated light responses as well as signal integration mechanisms enabling a coordinated response to light cues sensed by several photoreceptors.

(BIO)

Jaume Flexas

Department of Biology, University of the Balearic Islands

Jaume Flexas is a Professor of Plant Physiology at Universitat de les Illes Balears (Spain). His research is focused on plant ecophysiology, and particularly on photosynthesis limitations under stress conditions and ecophysiological traits of plants from extreme environments, such as those in Antarctica or the Himalaya. He has been identified as a Highly Cited Author in Clarivate’s list since 2014.

BIO

Elizabeth P B Fontes

Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Celular, Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)

Elizabeth Fontes has a long-standing interest in plant-virus interactions; uncovering mechanisms by which viruses suppress plant immunity and subvert host functions for their own benefit. Particularly, Fontes’ lab has been engaged in deciphering the geminivirus-host interactome using model plant systems and is also conducting translational research to acquire resistance against geminiviruses in crop species. More recently, Fontes’ lab has also been involved in understanding the plant-abiotic stress interactions, especially the regulatory network that controls the integration of cell death signals with ER stress and osmotic stress responses.

BIO

Xiangdong Fu

Principal investigator, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Xiangdong Fu researches gibberellin signaling and growth-metabolic coordination in plants. Much of his research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of how plants integrate and coordinate growth, carbon, and nitrogen assimilation. In addition, QTL, GWAS, and molecular biological approaches will be taken to systematically investigate the genetic basis of plant developmental adaptations to nitrogen availability and identify new genes for improving grain yield and nitrogen-use efficiency in crops.

BIO

Peter Geigenberger

Department of Biology, University of Munich - LMU

Peter Geigenberger researches themes of metabolic regulation, cell signaling and storage metabolism in plants. He has studied starch and lipid metabolism for many years, focusing on signals that regulate storage function in response to physiological and environmental inputs and assessing biotechnological applications to improve crops. Much of his research draws on a combination of systems biology and hypothesis driven approaches including an integrated analysis (profiling) of plant metabolism in different genotypes and environments using genetic, biochemical and molecular-physiological methods. Peter is keenly interested in understanding how storage metabolism is regulated in response to intracellular redox and sugar signals and to low-oxygen signals associated with the normal development and growth of tubers and seeds.

(BIO)

Anja Geitmann

Department of Plant Science, Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, McGill University

Anja Geitmann studies mechanical and logistic aspects of plant development and cell morphogenesis. The principal model system she uses is the fastest growing plant cell, the pollen tube. The topics she addresses include the spatial and temporal regulation of cellular growth events and the ability of cells to perceive mechanical stress. She investigates cytoskeleton mediated transport processes as well as the assembly and deformation of the cell wall. She uses a combination of cell biological strategies and mechanical and mathematical modeling to understand how particular cell shapes are generated and how cells function in the tissue context.

(BIO)

Maria Helena Goldman

Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of São Paulo – FFCLRP

Maria Helena studies the molecular mechanisms underlying pistil development and pollen-pistil interactions, particularly in Nicotiana tabacum, a wet stigma species. Her lab uses molecular approaches to identify and characterize genes preferentially expressed in the plant’s female reproductive organ. Cell biology, biochemical and genomic approaches complement the studies unraveling the pathways involved in these processes. Her group’s work revealed the existence of a gene regulating cell proliferation and the final size of the pistil, which was named SCI1. Presently, they investigate proteins interacting with SCI1 and the mechanisms through which they control cell proliferation.

BIO

Ya-Long Guo

State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Yalong Guo studies the plant adaptive evolution, and pursues questions of comparative genomics, population genetics, and natural variation. His research involves different taxonomy, including Arabidopsis, rice, and their relatives. He is particularly interested in the mysteries of how plants could adapt to the climate change, based on data from genomics, genetics, and ecology.

BIO