Plant Biology
Research includes:
- Biofuels
- Cell Biology and Morphogenesis
- Cell Metabolism
- Cell Signaling
- Cytoskeleton
- Development
- Genetics
- Genomics
- Plant Biology
- Plant Biotechnology
- Plant Interaction with the Environment
- Plant Interaction with the Pathogens
Training Group Mission:
The Plant Biology graduate program provides an opportunity for students to study a diverse array of aspects of plant sciences, including growth and development, cell biology, reproduction, physiology, metabolism, and gene expression. Students are provided with a broad-based curriculum that focuses on the study of basic plant sciences. Students conduct research employing multidisciplinary approaches to examine the biology of plants including molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics. The research of the Plant Biology group emphasizes basic plant sciences; however, many students are involved in projects that evaluate the biotechnological opportunities that stem from their research.
Faculty Membership
Plant-insect chemical ecology, biochemical spectroscopy, ecosystem ecology.
Plant-Biotic interactions. Community ecology. Evolutionary Game theory.
Ecological and evolutionary genetics: adaptation and adaptive traits (especially freezing tolerance and flowering time); heterosis; plant mating system evolution.
The Widhalm laboratory (@WidhalmLab) uses functional genomics approaches with synthetic biology tools to advance basic knowledge of plant metabolism. The goal of our research is to translate discoveries of new pathway genes and novel findings about pathway architecture and regulation to design metabolic engineering strategies for applications relevant to sustainable agriculture and toward improving human health. We are particularly interested in specialized plant quinones, compounds which have emerged as targets for developing novel natural product-based herbicides and novel therapeutic cancer drugs. In addition to gene discovery, we are working to understand the subcellular organization of specialized quinone pathways and their connections with primary metabolism.
