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)

Zhong-Hua Chen

rofessor - 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)

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

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

We explore technological and applied aspects of metabolome and fluxome analysis with a focus on gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) based technologies. Our biological questions range from stress physiology and biotechnology of plants and photosynthetic microorganisms, such as algae and cyanobacteria, to cytosolic plant ribosome biogenesis, heterogeneity and specialization. Our interest in plant ribosome biogenesis is curiosity-driven research that was sparked by the discovery of cold sensitive Arabidopsis ribosome biogenesis mutants.

(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)

Ronald Pierik

Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Wageningen University & Research

Ronald Pierik studies plant phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental changes. He researches photoreceptor-mediated signaling cascades in controlling shade avoidance responses to neighbouring plants, with an emphasis on light - hormone interactions. His work identified novel, photoreceptor-independent plant neighbour detection systems that operate through mechanostimulation and volatile organic compounds. Much of Ronald’s work integrates insights at the molecular and physiological level with whole plant performance during competition for resources.

(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)

Jianhua Zhang

Professor Zhang Jianhua is currently the Chair Professor in Plant Biology at Hong Kong Baptist University. He served as Dean of Science and then Associate Vice-President (Global Research Collaboration) at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2017-2023 and Director of State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2012-2017. An expert in the areas of plant stress physiology and water-saving cultivation of field crops, Professor Zhang was selected by Nature as one of the “Five crop researchers who could change the world” in December 2008 for his research focusing primarily on water-saving irrigation in China.Professor Zhang’s achievements have been widely recognized through several awards including the State Natural Science Award and the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award from the State Council of China.

BIO

Last Row

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Last Row

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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)

Wagner Araujo

Plant Biology Department, Universidade Federal de Vicosa, Brazil

Wagner Araujo is currently a Professor in the Plant Biology Department at the Universidade Federal de Vicosa (Brazil). His interests include plant physiology, metabolism, and genetics, and his main projects and expertise are related to molecular ecophysiology including biochemical regulation and function of alternative pathways of plant respiration, the role of organic acid metabolism in the regulation of photosynthesis, hormonal signaling and metabolism, and broad aspects of plant metabolism and acclimation responses to abiotic stresses in general.

[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)

Judy Brusslan

Professor, Principal Investigator of Bridges to the Doctorate, California State University Long Beach

Judy Brusslan is interested in how senescence in older leaves is triggered by the vegetative to reproductive transition at the meristem and whether extracellular vesicles mediate leaf senescence. In addition, she studies the role histone modifications play in regulating this final stage of leaf development. Her lab takes a molecular genetics approach using Arabidopsis. Judy works at a minority-serving Primarily Undergraduate Institution and her research is carried out by master’s degree and undergraduate students.

[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)

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)

Thomas Dresselhaus

Department Cell Biology and Plant Biochemistry, University of Regensburg

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)

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

Matthew Hannah

BASF, Agricultural Solutions

Matthew Hannah researched plant physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology before moving into the emerging field of systems-level biology, particularly transcriptomics and metabolomics. His academic research focused on plant environment responses, particularly to temperature and light, and made important contributions to understanding the interplay between cold acclimation and the circadian clock. He has worked in industry for a number of years, but retains close links with academia. He leads a research program on abiotic stress tolerance with a focus on emerging research topics in the fields of trait discovery and enabling technology development.

(BIO)

Stacey Harmer

University of California, Davis, Plant Biology

Stacey Harmer is interested in how plants adapt to the abiotic environment. Her research focuses on the plant circadian clock, addressing both the molecular nature of the oscillator that generates daily rhythms and aspects of plant physiology affected by the circadian system. She is particularly interested in exploring relationships between clock, light, and growth signaling pathways.

(BIO)

Klaus Harter

University of Tuebingen, Dept. of Plant Physiology

Klaus Harter researches themes of cell and hormonal signalling, regulation of transcription factors and the plant´s responses to abiotic stress. He has studied the molecular physiology of Arabidopsis thaliana for over 15 years, work that has proven seminal in establishing this small plant as the premier model plant it is today. Much of his research focuses on the structure and function of the two-component signaling system, early signalling events in plant cellular membranes and on the posttranslational regulation of transcription factors; it draws on mathemathic modelling of subcellular processes as well as molecular, cell biological and physiological methods. Klaus is also keenly interested in optimising and establishing spectro-microscopic techniques for the in vivo analysis of subcellular processes at high resolution.

(BIO)

Noel Michele Holbrook

Biological Laboratories, Harvard University

Michele Holbrook’s research examines the physics and physiology of vascular transport, with the overarching goal of understanding how constraints on the movement of water and solutes between soil and leaves influences ecological and evolutionary processes. Her work encompasses both xylem and phloem transport, with an emphasis on their functional integration. Major questions include how fluctuations in water potential affect phloem functioning and how plants protect their xylem from cavitation.

(BIO)

Ki-Hong Jung

Graduate School of Biotechnology and Crop Biotech Institute, Kyung Hee University

Ki-Hong Jung researches physiology and signaling pathways for the tip-growth development in rice coupled with transcriptomics. He has studied anther, pollen, and root development for over 20 years, which established a base for understanding early male-gamete development in rice and initiated a molecular understanding of male sterility for hybrid rice production. Root hairs and pollen tubes are ideal models to study tip growth in plants and he leads a research program on tip-growth biology in rice. Ki-Hong is also intensively interested in overcoming functional redundancy through the integrating analysis of phylogenetics and transcriptomes for whole rice gene families and CRISPR/CAS9-mediated editing of multiple genes in rice, which accelerates functional genomics in rice.

BIO

Aardra Kachroo

Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, University of Kentucky

Aardra’s expertise is in molecular plant signaling mechanisms, particularly in relation to plant-microbe interactions. The long-term goals of her program are to elucidate the intricate signaling cohorts that simultaneously regulate plant growth and disease physiologies. Practical goals are to leverage the plant’s own metabolism to generate sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions for a healthier planet. Currently her lab studies: 1) How mobile chemical inducers of systemic immunity are metabolized and transported; 2) How glycerolipid metabolism interfaces with disease physiology; 3) How plants simultaneously regulate interactions with beneficial and pathogenic microbes.

(BIO)

Eirini Kaiserli

Institute of Molecular, Cell & Systems Biology, University of Glasgow

The focus of Eirini’s research is to understand how environmental stimuli induce changes in nuclear architecture, chromatin organisation and gene expression to regulate plant growth and development. In particular, she is interested in elucidating the molecular function, composition and physiological significance of the light-regulated nuclear body complexes in plants using a multi-disciplinary approach.

(BIO)

Aruna Kilaru

Distinguished Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, East Tennessee State University

Aruna Kilaru has expertise in diverse areas of plant biology including plant-pathogen interactions, hormone physiology, micropropagation, stress signaling and metabolic biochemistry. Her recent work has been focused on understanding the mechanisms and regulation of lipid-mediated stress signaling and storage lipid synthesis. Her long-term goals include developing strategies and synthetic biological tools to generate climate-resilient crops for sustained and improved productivity.

BIO

Fanjiang Kong

School of Life Sciences, Guangzhou University

Fanjiang Kong studies the photoperiod-controlled plant development and evolution and domestication of soybean agronomic traits using genetic and genomic approaches. His work has focused on genetic and genomic dissection of soybean photoperiod flowering and classified a distinct flowering mechanism in soybean and the evolutionary genomics of soybean adaptation. He is particularly interested in the photoperiod and temperature mediated signal transduction on the development of growth habit and nodules in soybean which determine the agronomic value.

BIO

Sandeep Kumar

Applied Research Lead, Product Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations

Sandeep is a plant biotechnologist with a long-standing interest in adoption and application of emerging technologies to address current and future challenges in agriculture. He has diverse industry and academic research experience in plant biology including gene expression and optimization, recombinant DNA methods, plant transformation, precision genome engineering using CRISPR and Zinc Finger Nucleases. For the last ~13 years in industry, his focus has been on bringing the best science to address genome editing, trait discovery and product development challenges to support commercialization of biotech trait products.

(BIO)

Junko Kyozuka

Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University

Professor Junko Kyozuka has 25 years’ experience of studying mechanisms of plant development. Her career has been focused on shoot branching, first focused on genetic mechanisms of inflorescence branching in rice, and then, on the control of shoot branching by strigolactones. More recently, she studies evolution of strigolactone signaling and biosynthesis using bryophytes. She mainly uses molecular genetic approaches to understand the mechanisms how plant optimize their growth, with a particular focus on branching.

(BIO)

Tracy Lawson

School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex

Tracy Lawson studies stomata in relation to photosynthesis. Her interests include their control of gas exchange between the atmosphere and the leaf, the associated water loss and the mechanisms that co-ordinate and regulate this process. Her research addresses stomatal kinetics and the impact of dynamic environments on both photosynthesis and stomata. She uses a range of phenotyping approaches including chlorophyll fluorescence and thermal imaging for measuring stomatal responses and kinetics.

(BIO)

Ana Laxalt

Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

Ana Laxalt studies the role of lipid signaling in plant stress, with a special focus on plant defense responses. She studies the role of the different phospholipases C and D in the perception of pathogens and the induction of defense responses, including stomata movement. She is interested in establishing the role of lipid second messengers in relation to other second messengers involved in plant defense such as reactive oxygen species, calcium and the gasotransmitters nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide.

BIO

Li Li

Robert W Holley Center, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University

Li Li’s research program focuses primarily on plant metabolism, particularly carotenoid and flavonoid. She is also interested in micronutrient nutrition. Her research uses both horticultural crops and model plants for novel gene discovery and uncovering the regulatory mechanisms to develop tools and strategies for crop metabolic engineering and biofortification.

BIO

Yann-Rong Lin

Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University

Yann-rong Lin is interested in basic research on crop genetics and variety improvement. Her research focuses on unveiling germplasm genetic diversity, uncovering QTLs by using biparental mapping and genome wide association studies, and isolating genes by positional cloning. Consequently, molecular, quantitative, and evolutionary genetics are elucidated and applied to molecular breeding. Her lab with the collaborators has been working on grain quality and/or flowering time of rice, foxtail millet, sorghum, and brassica vegetables, which can promote market price and food security.

(BIO)

Qikun Liu

Assistant Professor, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University

Dr. Qikun Liu obtained his graduate training at Pennsylvania State University and conducted postdoctoral research at University of California, Los Angeles. Research in his lab focuses on epigenetic regulation of plant gene expression, with a special interest in the developmental process of plant regeneration. His lab uses Arabidopsis as a model system and tries to dissect the gene regulatory mechanism underlying cell identity changes during plant regeneration.

(Bio)

Sibongile Mafu

Assistant Professor Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

Sibongile Mafu’s research interest is understanding the biological chemistry of specialized metabolites with a focus on terpenes. This includes deciphering the enzymatic basis for the formation of functional chemical diversity observed in select plants and fungal organisms. She also studies the importance of terpenes in response to abiotic and biotic stress.

BIO

Shizue Matsubara

Shizue Matsubara studies acclimation of photosynthesis and leaf growth from physiological, ecophysiological and biochemical perspective. Her research focus includes photoprotection and photoinhibition under stress conditions, metabolism of photosynthetic pigments, as well as growth and resource allocation. In her work she combines non-invasive phenotyping techniques such as chlorophyll fluorescence and image analysis with biochemical and omics approaches. Further, her group applies carbon isotope labeling to elucidate turnover of molecules in photosynthetic membrane and chloroplast.

BIO

Scott McAdam

Associate Professor, Botany & Plant Pathology, Purdue University College of Agriculture

Scott McAdam is interested in understanding how the evolution of plant water relations determined plant survival on land over the past 400 million years, with a particular focus on the evolution of stomatal regulation, phytohormones and xylem function. A key goal of his research is to understand the key physiological and anatomical mechanisms allowing plants to live in dry environments, and how those traits have evolved. To address this he draws upon a wide diversity of species, as well as mutants; and uses ecophysiological techniques ranging from gas exchange to the quantification of hormones. His work has provided new insights into the evolution of hormonal signaling, xylem function and stomatal regulation across land plants.

[BIO]

Alistair McCormick

Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences & SynthSys, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Alistair McCormick studies photosynthesis and strategies to enhance the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants, algae and cyanobacteria. His research is focused on improving our funtional understanding of the algal CO2-concentrating mechanism and efforts to introduce synthetic CO2-concentrating mechanisms into higher plants to improve productivity. He is also interested in developing synthetic biology tools in cyanobacteria and progressing cyanobacteria as platforms for commercial biotechnology applications.

(BIO)

Sébastien Mongrand

Laboratory of Membrane Biogenesis, CNRS/University of Bordeaux

Sébastien Mongrand researches themes of membrane signaling in plants. He studies how the plant plasma membrane is organized to fulfill its function as transducer of signals. He focuses on the role of lipids (phospholipids, sphingolipids and sterols) and proteins with a specific focus on the role of plasma membrane in plant-microbe and plant-virus interactions. Sébastien Mongrand is also keenly interested in understanding the biophysical parameters at play in the organisation of plasma membrane domains.

(BIO)

Zoran Nikoloski

Department of Systems Biology, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, and University of Potsdam

Zoran Nikoloski investigates biochemical networks, approaches for data integration and their applications in plant systems biology. His computational methods have facilitated the reconstruction and analysis of genetic and metabolic networks as well as for analysis of the plant cytoskeleton. Much of his research focuses on computational approaches for constraint-based modelling and on optimization problems from graph theory. Zoran is deeply interested in elucidating the interplay between robustness and plasticity of molecular traits and how these affect growth and other complex plant traits.

(BIO)

Gabriela Pagnussat

IIB-CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

Gabriela studies the molecular mechanisms underlying female gametophyte development, embryogenesis, and cell death. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, her lab uses biochemical, molecular, and genomic approaches to identify proteins and pathways involved these processes. Her work on megagametogenesis revealed the existence of a mitochondrial electron shuttle required for brassinosteroid synthesis and early embryogenesis. She is also interested in regulated cell death mechanisms, with a particular focus on oxidative iron-dependent pathways in response to high temperatures.

(BIO)

Ralph Panstruga

RWTH Aachen University, Institute for Biology I, Unit of Plant Molecular Cell Biology

Ralph Panstruga has a long-standing interest in interactions between plants and obligate biotrophic pathogens. His research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underpin compatible and incompatible interactions in these plant-parasite encounters. He retains a special interest in the powdery mildews, and a large part of his research is devoted to their virulence mechanisms and to the broad-spectrum disease resistance against these parasites in Arabidopsis and crop (cereals, pea, tomato) plants. He takes advantage of comparative fungal genomics and recent advances facilitating data mining in the exploration of the fungal genomes.

(BIO)

Omar Pantoja

Principal Investigator, Instituto de Biotecnologia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Omar Pantoja started his career studying guard cells physiology and then, focused on the study of ion channels and transporters related to salt stress, mainly, to those located at the tonoplast. His research has helped to identify several mechanisms like the tonoplast malate channels involved in the accumulation of dicarboxylates in the vacuole and calcium permeable ion channels, later associated to the SV-channels. Work with the HKT transporters helped to identify the protein-protein interaction of OsHKT1;3 with the COPII cargo receptor cornichon (OsCNIH1), opening a new interest in the intracellular trafficking of membrane proteins. His research employs Molecular and Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Electrophysiology techniques with the support of several heterologous systems like yeast, frog oocytes and tobacco cells

BIO

Ashwani Pareek

Professor of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Stress Physiology and Molecular Biology Laboratory, School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Ashwani Pareek studies the signaling mechanisms involved in plant abiotic stress tolerance using physiology, genomics, molecular, and metabolomics-based approaches. Pareek is deeply interested in dissecting the role of the complex network of two-component machinery in stress response in contrasting genotypes of crops. His research is focused on understanding the adaptive response in rice towards combined and sequential stresses and developing crop plants with enhanced tolerance to salinity and drought using forward and reverse genetics tools.

BIO

Pierdomenico Perata

Professor of plant physiology, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Pierdomenico Perata is professor of plant physiology at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, where he was Rector of the university (2013-2019). In 1994 he received the "FESPB Award", which is awarded by the Federation of European Societies of Plant Physiology (FESPB) Congress for excellence in scientific achievements. His research interests include plant hypoxia physiology, sugar sensing and signaling and, more recently, exogenous RNA signaling. He is president of the Italian Society of Plant Biology. His publication record includes over 100 articles published in scientific journals, including Nature, Science, Nature Communications, Nature Plants, PLOS Biology, The Plant Cell, The Plant Journal, Plant Physiology, Trends in Plant Science, and many others.

BIO

Jill Preston

Department of Plant Biology, University of Vermont

Jill Preston’s research focuses on genetic mechanisms underlying evolution of flowering time and flower development, with a particular focus on grasses and petunias. She uses genomic tools to assess gene expression changes across ontology, phylogeny, and environments, and both molecular evolution and reverse genetics to determine evolution of protein function. She also has more general interests in plant niche transitions between stressful environments, and the physiological and developmental mechanisms that have allowed these shifts.

(BIO)

Haiyun Ren

College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University

Haiyun Ren works on the organization, dynamics and function of actin and microtubule cytoskeleton during the physiological process of plant cells; including cell division, cell polarity formation and cell elongation. Haiyun’s particular focus is how actin and microtubule dynamics are regulated by their binding proteins and the upstream signals, and how these two kinds of cytoskeleton function in coordination.

BIO

Rashmi Sasidharan

Associate Professor of Ecophysiology, Utrecht University

Rashmi Sasidharan studies how plants sense, respond and acclimate to flooding. She combines genomics, genetics and molecular physiology to probe the roles of the associated stress signals (hypoxia, ethylene, starvation, ROS), the responses they elicit and the functional relevance for plant survival both during flooding. She uses the model plant Arabidopsis and flood-adapted ‘non-model’ wetland species to identify where in this signal-to-response network, variation (inter or intra-species) arises between sensitive and tolerant plants. Rashmi is also interested in identifying the signalling networks facilitating flooding recovery upon reoxygenation and exploring the parallels with drought.

(BIO)

Sigal Savaldi-Goldstein

Faculty of Biology, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology

Sigal Savaldi-Goldstein studies the role of hormonal signaling, cell identity and mechanical constraints that together dictate developmental output. Her research focuses on roots as a model organ and on the brassinosteroid signaling pathway as a means to elucidate developmental mechanisms. In particular, the regulation of growth coordination among cells, growth directionality at the cell and organ level and meristematic function. She is also interested in how these processes are tuned by distinct environmental conditions.

(BIO)

Thomas Slewinski

Crop Efficiency and Disease Discovery Lead, Biotechnology division, Bayer Crop Science

Tom Slewinski currently leads the Crop Efficiency and Disease Discovery team in the Biotechnology division of Bayer Crop Science and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University Missouri Columbia. He currently works to discover, engineer, and develop promising genetic leads for crop improvement using both transgenic and gene editing technology for corn and soy. Prior to joining industry, Tom worked on the underlying genetics, physiology and evolution of phloem loading and transport in trees, carbohydrate partitioning in grasses and Kranz-type C4 photosynthesis in maize.

BIO

Eric Schaller

Dartmouth College, Dept. of Biological Sciences

Eric Schaller researches mechanisms of phytohormone signaling, in particular signaling by ethylene and cytokinin, and has broad interests in membrane biology. His work on ethylene has centered on how the receptors perceive and transduce the ethylene signal, and his initial studies played a key role in identifying ETR1 as an ethylene receptor in Arabidopsis. His studies of cytokinin have focused on the two-component system and the transcriptional cascade that mediate signaling. He uses biochemical, molecular, and genetic approaches.

(BIO)

Neelima Sinha

University of California, Davis, Section of Plant Biology, Life Sciences Addition

Neelima Sinha’s research focuses on developmental mechanisms of leaf shape diversity and complexity. She uses tomato as a model organism, along with comparative studies with other species in the Angiosperms, using genomic tools to look at tissue and cell specific gene expression during development and environmental variations in developmental regulation. She also has a strong interest in parasitic plants, the structures that connect parasites to their hosts, and the transfer of nucleic acids between the two partners in this interaction.

(BIO)

Alison G. Smith

University of Cambridge, Department of Plant Sciences

Alison G. Smith is a plant biochemist focusing on metabolism, particularly involving vitamins and cofactors. Her research group has combined biochemical, molecular biological and genomics approaches to study biosynthetic pathways for haem and chlorophyll, and for vitamins B5 (pantothenate) and B1 (thiamine), in plants, algae and bacteria. This has included determining the subcellular location of the enzymes and their structure-function relationships, and the role of metabolites in regulation of gene expression, for example via riboswitches. The knowledge gained from these studies is now being exploited using synthetic biology approaches for metabolic engineering of high value products in plants and algae, and other biotechnological uses of algae, such as for biodiesel production. In parallel, Alison's group was responsible for the recognition of the importance of symbiotic interactions between algae and bacteria for the exchange of essential micronutrients. This is providing insights into algal communities in natural ecosystems, and in dense cultures necessary for industrial cultivation.

(BIO)

Sophia Stone

Professor, George S. Campbell Chair in Biology, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University

Sophia Stone’s research deals with plant hormone signaling and response to environmental stress. Her work focuses on the role of the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) in regulating hormone signal transduction and mediating responses to abiotic stress. Using a combination of cell and molecular biology, genetics,and physiology, she is interested in identifying proteins that are targeted for degradation by the UPS in response to environmental cues, and understanding how the UPS is itself regulated to facilitate growth under suboptimal conditions.

BIO

Dan Szymanski

Purdue University, Dept. of Agronomy

Dan Szymanski seeks to discover how small GTPase signal transduction is converted into cytoskeletal reorganization and polarized growth responses. He uses Arabidopsis as a model to understand the morphogenesis and growth of epidermal cell types in the shoot and their connections to cytoskeleton dynamics, vesicle trafficking, and signal transduction. His expertise includes EM and light microscopy, quantitative image analysis and modelling, mass spectrometry, molecular genetics, and cell fractionation.

(BIO)

Junpei Takano

Plant Nutrition Research Group, Graduate School of Agriculture, Osaka Metropolitan University

Junpei Takano studies how plants sense nutrients and maintain their homeostasis by controlling abundance and intracellular localization of membrane transport proteins. His specific interests include mechanisms underlying boron sensing by a borate transceptor for its own degradation and polar localization of transport proteins in the plasma membrane. He is also interested in development of nutrient efficient crops utilizing the molecular insights of nutrient transport.

BIO

Christa Testerink

Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University

Christa Testerink focuses on responses of plants to their environment. In particular she has contributed to understanding growth and developmental responses of roots to salinity. She investigates this at the biochemical, cellular and whole plant level and has elucidated cellular signaling and genetic architecture underlying phenotypic plasticity of plant roots in response to abiotic stresses in Arabidopsis. She increasingly addresses stress responses and tolerance of crops.

(BIO)

Jurriaan Ton

Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield

Jurriaan Ton has a long-standing interest in plant responses to plant pathogens, herbivores and beneficial soil microbes. He studies the molecular and epigenetic basis of immune priming, roles of DNA methylation, and the associated trade-offs on plant growth. His interests include how plants employ their immune system during interactions with root-associated microbes, such as plant growth-promoting rhizoabacteria and mycorrhizal fungi. In this context, they examine the effects of root exudation chemistry on root-associated microbial communities.

(BIO)

Frank Van Breusegem

Dept. of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, VIB Dept. of Systems Biology

Frank Van Breusegem obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree at Ghent University. He is a group leader of the Oxidative Stress Signaling group at the VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology (since 2001), full professor at Ghent University, and Vice-Chair of the Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University). Frank’s longtime focus has been on the molecular impact of oxidative stress on plant cells. He obtained his PhD from Ghent University (1997) with work on “Engineering Stress Tolerance in Maize”. The current primary objective of the Van Breusegem lab is the identification and functional analysis of regulatory gene and protein networks involved in the oxidative stress response in plants. Ultimately, Frank aims to translate this knowledge into biotechnological crop efficiency concepts.

(BIO)

Nicolaus von Wiren

Molecular Plant Nutrition, Dept. of Physiology and Cell Biology, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research

Nicolaus von Wirén researches nutrient acquisition, allocation and homeostasis in plants, notably in relation to ammonium transport and the mobilization of micronutrient metals by root exudates. He has special interests in the impact of minerals on root system architecture and in nutrient sensing and signalling as it affects root development. He integrates molecular, biochemical and physiological approaches to explain whole-plant performance under different nutritional conditions.

(BIO)

Jun Wu

Nanjing Agricultural University, State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement

Jun Wu’s focus is fruit science. Her research interests include molecular and genetic mechanism of fruit development, germplasm evaluation and population genetics, genomics and evolution, QTL mapping and molecular breeding. Jun’s work combines molecular, physiological, genetic, and genomic approaches.

BIO

Viktor Zarsky

Faculty of Science Dept. of Experimental Plant Bio, Charles University

Viktor Žárský has researched the life cycle of Chlamydomonas and its ultrastructure as well as pollen development, its maturation, and stress induction of pollen embryogenesis and pollen incompatibility. Pollen tip growth and work on small GTPases inspired his interest in the molecular mechanisms of cell polarity and morphogenesis with the co-ordination of cytoskeleton, membrane lipids and especially membrane trafficking regulators. He has a long standing interest in the vesicle tethering complex, the Exocyst, and its roles in targeted secretion and autophagy.

(BIO)

Peng Zhang

Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

Peng Zhang studies structural mechanism underlying plant cross membrane transport and signaling. Using macromolecular X-Ray crystallography and cryo-EM techniques, his group determines the 3D-structures of proteins or complexes involved in plant nutrient/hormone transport and plant-environment signaling. Combining with biochemical, biophysical and physiological methods, he aims to understand the underlying molecular mechanism in plant cross membrane transport and signaling, as well as provide creative ideas to plant/crop design and engineering.

BIO

Matias Zurbriggen

Institute of Synthetic Biology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

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Assistant Features Editors

Alexandra Burgess

University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Alexandra Burgess is a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Nottingham who focuses on the role of canopy architecture on light interception and photosynthesis, alternative cropping systems for sustainable agricultural, and computer vision for phenotyping.

BIO

Dechang Cao

Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dechang Cao is a junior PI working on seed dormancy and germination in the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is especially interested in post-fire seed germination at the moment.

BIO

Amanda A. Cardoso

Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, NC State University

Amanda A. Cardoso is mostly interested in understanding the transport of water within plants during and after challenging conditions and her background goes all the way from xylem to stomatal physiology.

BIO

Jian Chen

Jiangsu University

Jian Chen is a new PI at Jiangsu University, China. He studies the salicylic acid signaling and effector biology in Pseudomonas-Arabidopsis interactions.

BIO

Jiawen Chen

John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom

Jiawen Chen is a PhD student at the John Innes Centre, in Norwich in the UK, working on the biochemistry of starch granule initiation in Arabidopsis and wheat in the lab of David Seung. Jiawen grew up in the Netherlands and received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh.

BIO

Joke de Jaeger-Braet

University of Hamburg, Germany

Joke De Jaeger-Braet is a molecular plant biologist, currently a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Arp Schnittger at the university of Hamburg (Germany). Her main research interests are the regulation of cell division and the heat stress effect on meiosis.

BIO

Gustaf Degen

School of Biosences, The University of Sheffield

Gustaf E. Degen is a postdoctoral research associate working on the regulation of cyclic electron transport in Arabidopsis thaliana in Matt Johnson's group at the University of Sheffield.

BIO

Marieke Dubois

Ghent University

Marieke Dubois is a postdoc in the Center of Plant Systems Biology of VIB Ghent, Belgium. Her work focusses on the regulation of cell division and hormonal signaling under drought stress in Arabidopsis.

BIO

Guadalupe Fernández-Milmanda

VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology

Guada Fernandez-Milmanda is a postdoc in the Specialized Metabolism group in the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent, Belgium. Since her PhD, she has pursued her passion for jasmonates, hormone regulators of plant defenses.

BIO

Manuel González-Fuentes

Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Bochum, Germany

After attaining his PhD at the Laboratory of Plant-Microbe Interactions in Toulouse (France), Manuel is carrying out his postdoctoral project in the lab of Prof. Suayb Üstün at the Ruhr-University of Bochum (Germany). Here, he is working on processing bodies, membraneless aggregates formed of translationally repressed transcripts and proteins, induced upon abiotic and biotic stresses.

BIO

Yana Kazachova

Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Yana Kazachkova is a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) studying plant self-tolerance mechanisms using steroidal glycoalkaloid transport in Solanaceae plants as a model.

BIO

Henning Kirst

University of Cantabria, Spain

Henning Kirst is a Maria Zambrano fellow at the University of Cantabria as well as a Ramon y Cajal awardee. He is a synthetic biologist, engineering the light-harvesting antennae of photosynthetic organisms as well as synthetic cellular compartmentalization.

BIO

Yee-Shan Ku

School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Yee-Shan Ku is a post-doctoral researcher at School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on plant stress adaptability, plant secondary metabolite, and plant-microbe interaction

BIO

Amy Lanctot

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Amy Lanctot is a postdoctoral researcher interested in how conserved cis-regulatory sequence impacts gene expression and development. She works in the lab of Zach Lippman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York.

BIO

Aida Maric

University of Freiburg, Germany

Aida Maric is a postdoc researcher studying epigenetic regulation of flooding stress memory in plants in the group of Prof. Sjon Hartman at the University of Freiburg. Previously, she did her PhD in the lab of Prof. Paloma Mas investigating the interaction of epigenetics and the circadian clock.

BIO

Hannah McMillan

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Hannah McMillan is a postdoctoral fellow working with Sheng Yang He at Duke University. She studies three-way interactions between plants, microbiome communities, and the environment."

BIO

Divya Mishra

Kansas State University

Divya Mishra is a postdoctoral fellow with David Cook at Kansas state university. She is developing efficient RNA-targeting systems such as guide-induced gene silencing and CRISPR-Cas against plant pathogens.

BIO

Sebastian Moreno

Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University, United Kingdom

Sebastian Moreno is a plant developmental biology at Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University in the lab of Henrik Jönsson. His main interest is to understand how different hormonal cross-talks regulate shoot apical meristem dynamics.

BIO

Dyoni M. Oliveira

VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium

Dyoni M. Oliveira is a postdoctoral researcher interested in the role of cell walls in plant development and the biotechnological applications of plant biomass for biorefining. He combines systems biology and analytical approaches to identify new genes in phenolic metabolism and engineer the structure of lignin polymers in crops, with further integration with LC-MS-based metabolomics for the systematic identification of secondary metabolite structures

BIO

Miriam Oses-Ruiz

Universidad Publica de Navarra, Spain

Miriam Oses-Ruiz is an independent research fellow at Universidad Publica de Navarra (Spain). She works in understanding how plant pathogens cause infection using the model fungal organism Magnaporthe oryzae, the causal agent of rice blast disease.

BIO

Lara Pereira García

University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Lara Pereira García is a postdoc with broad interest in plant genetics, genomics and metabolomics. She has worked on fruit quality in horticultural crops in the past, and now focuses on grass evolutionary genetics. In particular, Lara investigates the role of grass-to-grass lateral gene transfer as a driving force of evolution and as a contributor to species pangenomes in grasses."

BIO

Yadukrishna Premachandran

Indian Institute of Science

Yadukrishnan Premachandran is a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Utpal Nath’s group at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is studying the mechanisms by which abiotic stress conditions affect the morphogenic plasticity exhibited by plants in response to suboptimal light.

BIO

Moona Rahikainen

University of Helsinki, Finland

Moona Rahikainen works as an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher with Saijaliisa Kangasjärvi at the University of Helsinki. She investigates the regulatory mechanisms governing plant stress tolerance with focus on the post-translational regulation of the mitochondrial dysfunction response.

BIO

Janlo M. Robil

Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines

Janlo M. Robil is an Assistant Professor at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he worked with Dr. Paula McSteen. He's interested in the hormonal and genetic mechanisms that control vein formation and patterning in model grass species.

BIO

Alaeddine Safi

VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent, Belgium

Alaeddine Safi is a postdoctoral researcher in Tom Beeckman’s group at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Ghent (Belgium). He maintains a broad interest in plant development as well as nutrient and hormone signaling. He is currently investigating the earliest auxin-triggered phosphorylation events that control root growth and branching

BIO

Maria-Angelica Sanclemente

Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Maria-Angelica Sanclemente is a postdoctoral researcher in the biology department at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She holds an MS degree in Horticultural Sciences from the University of Florida and a PhD in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology from the same institution. At UF, Angelica studied physiological and genetic implications of sugar and oxygen availability on development of crop plants. Her current research focuses on identifying molecular basis of plant recovery after submergence using multi-omics tools.

BIO

Henryk Straube

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Henryk Straube is currently a postdoc in the Section for Plant Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His work is focused on the discovery and characterization of enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of antinutrients in Vicia faba using analytical chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and bioinformatics. He finished his PhD at the University of Hannover, Germany, where he contributed to the elucidation of nucleotide metabolism in plants.

BIO

Jiaqi Sun

Shandong University, China

Jiaqi Sun is a new PI at Shandong University in China. He works on molecular mechanism for the formation of endoplasmic reticulum in plants.

BIO

Kyle Swentowsky

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York

Kyle Swentowsky is an NSF PGRP postdoctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in David Jackson's lab studying the developmental genetics of perenniality in grass species.

BIO

Jose Manuel Ugalde

University of Bonn, Germany

José Manuel Ugalde is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bonn, Germany. He is interested in exploring the use of fluorescent biosensors to measure dynamic changes in redox biology and glutathione homeostasis under stress conditions in Arabidopsis thaliana.

BIO

Yajin Ye

Nanjing Forestry University

Yajin Ye is a professor at Nanjing Forestry University in China. He studies the regulation of fatty acid biosynthesis and functional genomics in woody plant.

BIO

Ryo Yokoyama

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany

Ryo Yokoyama is a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Dr. Alisdair Fernie at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. His research interest includes the role of photosynthesis in central carbon metabolism in plants.

BIO

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Christopher Lowe

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Mary Williams

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Ashton Wolf

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American Society of Plant Biologists

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15501 Monona Drive Rockville, MD 20855-2768 Crispin Taylor, Executive Director

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