First author of Histone deacetylase HDA19 affects root cortical cell fate by interacting with SCARECROW Name: Wenqian Chen Current Position: Post-doc at laboratory of RDP (Reproduction and Development of Plants) in ENS-Lyon Education: PHD and BA in College of Life Science, Peking University,…

A foundation of modern biotechnology is the ability to stably introduce foreign DNA into an organism. The two most widely used methods, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and biolistics, are both steeped in a rich history of creative exploration into the molecular unknown. Agrobacterium research accelerated…

This is a great essay by David Asai, Senior Director for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. David describes his journey from feeling annoyed at having to attend a multicultural forum to embracing their merit. He describes exercises that promote empathy and encourage respectful…

There are more than 7 million crop accessions in gene banks around the world, however the information records for them are in multiple formats, making a comparison between and within collections difficult. Extrapolating from a new paper by Milner et al. (Nature Genetics 51: pages319–326) Langridge…

In plants, the final shape of organs depends on how and when the cells divide. To get some insights about the rules governing this process, Jackson et al. applied network science to study the cell organization dynamics in the shoot apical meristem (SAM). They studied the L1, L2 and L3 cell layers in…

Plant activities change drastically between the light and dark times of day. Many of these different activities can be observed through transcriptional studies, which show that gene expression goes up and down over the course of the day. Many of these transcriptional changes are driven by the circadian…

The key event for speciation is reproductive isolation. In sexually reproducing plants, genetic factors act as reproductive barriers preventing the interbreeding of related strains. In this study, Lu et al. aimed to explore how the Tcb1-s (Teosinte crossing barrier 1-s) haplotype, found exclusively in…

There are many forms of hunger, one of which is micronutrient deficiency. Cassava is a staple food, but low in iron and zinc, in many regions where deficiencies of these micronutrients are common; therefore efforts have been made to biofortify cassava. Traditional breeding methods are of limited value…