This week's edition is guest edited by Arif Ashraf, a PhD student at Iwate University, Japan and Graduate Student Ambassador of ASPB. His research interest is understanding the hormonal interplay in primary root development of Arabidopsis thaliana. He blogs about plant science (http://www.aribidopsis.com/).…

South African Women in Science Awards Danielle Roodt, a Plantae Fellow and PhD candidate in the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Programme of the University of Pretoria, was recently awarded a South African Department of Science and Technologies ‘DST-Albertina Sisulu Doctoral Fellowships’. The…

Andrew Elliott, first author of A Cycloheximide-Sensitive Step in Transverse Microtubule Array Patterning Current Position:  Postdoctoral Fellow, Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute/University of Utah Education:  PhD, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Indiana University Bloomington Non-scientific…

Finding genes that function in plant development often requires mutant screening, but probing the wealth of natural variation can provide important insights as well. A major focus of developmental biology is uncovering the mechanism behind cell polarity, that is, how components are deposited asymmetrically…

Every plant organ, from tuber to tepal, is formed by cells that divide along precisely placed cell plates. While much is known about the molecular biology behind cell plate formation (e.g., Gu et al., 2016), why cells divide where they do is much less clear. Dividing cells have much in common with soap…

Qin Hu, first author of GhCPK33 negatively regulates defense against Verticillium dahliae by phosphorylating GhOPR3 Current Position: Post-Doctoral position at the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University (China)  Education: PhD in Crop Science, Huazhong…

Byung Ha Lee, first author of Arabidopsis protein kinase D6PKL3 is involved in formation of distinct plasma-membrane aperture domains on the pollen surface Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Molecular Genetics and Center for Applied Plant Sciences, The Ohio State University,…

Asis Shrestha, first author of An ancestral allele of pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthase1 promotes proline accumulation and drought adaptation in cultivated barley Current Position: Doctoral student, Plant Breeding, INRES, University of Bonn, Germany Education: Masters of Science in Agriculture Sciences…