In honor of US Women’s History Month, the Women in Plant Biology Committee of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is thrilled to celebrate the remarkable women who have shaped and continue to shape our field. We’re calling on YOU to nominate exceptional women plant scientists, both past…

Dr. Gözde S. Demirer (X: @Demirer_GozdeS) obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Koç University in Turkey, before moving to the University of California Berkeley for her PhD. There, she worked on the development of carbon nanotubes as tools for the genetic…

Leonie Luginbuehl (X: @l_luginbuehl) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Prior to her current position, she was a PhD student in the lab of Prof. Giles Oldroyd at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, where she discovered the role of the transcription factor RAM1 in regulating…

Dr. Liana Acevedo-Siaca (X: @Liana_Ace) is currently a post-doctoral researcher in the Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, under the supervision of Prof. Stephen P. Long, within the framework of the Realizing…

This is an excellent introduction to how synthetic biology can be used to program plants for climate resilience by engineering them to respond predictably and in ways beyond those that evolution has explored, through the use of controllable synthetic gene circuits. Ragland et al. describe how precise…

Advances in sequencing technologies have led to a tremendous growth in the number of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) being identified in plants, but identifying their function lags behind. Here, Ramirez Gonzales and Blom et al. draw on lessons from studies in mammalian systems and highlight several known…

Asteraceae, also known as Compositae or the daisy family, is one of the largest plant families and comprises 10% of all flowering plants. Members of this family are found in habitats worldwide. The unique inflorescence, called a capitulum, is a key innovation of the family and contributes to its success.…

Genome complexity in multicellular organisms is often associated with repetitive sequences from Transposable Elements (TEs). TE function, importance for genome integrity, and dispensability have not been completely characterized.  In prokaryotes and simple eukaryotes, genome synthesis (production of…