Category: Blog

By Daniel Cosgrove The primary wall of a growing cell is a versatile, subtle, and dynamic structure, with unique properties and functions in the life of the plant (Burton et al., 2010). When a cell grows, its wall stretches irreversibly as the cell enlarges in volume. Cells can start and stop this…

By Matthew J. Paul, Asier Gonzalez-Uriarte, Cara A. Griffiths, and Keywan Hassani-Pak Significant increases in global food security require improving crop yields in favourable and poor conditions alike. However, it is challenging to increase both the crop yield potential and yield resilience simultaneously,…

Kono Yasui is our plant biologist highlight of the month. She was born in Japan in 1880. Throughout her life she challenged many of the cultural norms for women at that time. At her father’s encouragement, she constantly pursued education, first at schools for women in Japan, followed by studies…

To kick off Season 2, Ivan and Liz talk with Guillaume Lobet, Assistant Professor at the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Université Catholique de Louvain. He was also a graduate student at UCL and took three postdoctoral positions in Germany and Belgium before returning and starting his faculty position…

Part of the Self-Reflection; series by and for early-career researchers Your application has arrived at the top of the stack and you have passed the phone/web interview evaluation! Now all you have to do is ace the academic interview to land that faculty position you’ve been dreaming of for…

Meiotic recombination is an important source of genetic diversity by allowing the reshuffling of parental alleles during meiosis. It requires the generation of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) initiated by the activity of the SPO11 protein complex. In plants, the impact of chromatin structure and DNA…