Small RNAs have big effects and can serve to shut down or silence gene expression. Recently, studies have found that small RNAs can contribute to plant defense beyond the boundary of the plant, by being packed into extracellular vesicles (EVs) and delivered to a pathogen. Cai et al. review our current…

Covid has turned our focus to human viral pathogens, but the challenges we face from cellular pathogens has not gone away, and is increasingly exacerbated by the development of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials. This fine review by Tiwari et al. provides an overview of how antimicrobials…

PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORS (PIFs) play a pivotal role in mediating the responses of plants to various environmental stimuli. Although the importance of PIFs in shade avoidance response is well known, the relative contributions of different PIFs have not been discretely determined. In a recent study,…

A long-standing premise in plant ecology is that seed mass and growth rate are negatively correlated, meaning that small-seeded species grow faster than large-seeded ones. However, this relationship remains controversial given that the most common measurement for growth rate –Relative Growth Rate (RGR)–…

The term gender scissor describes the distribution of men and women throughout their scientific career: while girls represent more than a half of the University students, the percentage of women in science markedly decreases beyond the PhD. This trend has been reported in different European Union member…

The Plant Cell is accepting applications for new Assistant Features Editors (AFEs) for 2024. AFEs provide a valuable service to the journal, our authors, and the scientific community. In return, AFEs join our editorial board and receive training and experience in writing and communicating scientific…

Review. Message in a Bubble: Shuttling small RNAs and proteins between cells and interacting organisms using extracellular vesicles Small RNAs have big effects and can serve to shut down or silence gene expression. Recently, studies have found that small RNAs can contribute to plant defense beyond…

  Michal Pyc, co-first author of "LDIP Cooperates with SEIPIN and LDAP to Facilitate Lipid Droplet Biogenesis in Arabidopsis" Current Position: Research Scientist at Willow Biosciences (Burnaby, Canada) Education: B.Sc., M.Sc. in Biology at Queen’s University (Canada); Ph.D. in Molecular…