Plant Physiology Focus Issue Webinar: Plant Cell Polarity Sept 25, 2023
Plant Physiology Webinar: Plant Cell Polarity
Celebrating the September 2023 Focus Issue on Plant Cell Polarity
Recorded Monday, September 25, 2023
About This Webinar
Plant cell polarity plays a pivotal role in the fundamental processes that dictate plant growth, development, and adaptation. By establishing distinct regions within cells, plant cell polarity is crucial for regulating asymmetric cell divisions, guiding the direction of cell expansion, and determining the spatial distribution of essential cellular components. At the same time, the growth and developmental processes of multicellular organisms create new constraints imposing regulatory feedback on cell and tissue polarity. Understanding the mechanisms and regulatory pathways involved in plant cell polarity holds immense promise for enhancing crop productivity, optimizing plant responses to changing environments, and ultimately contributing to sustainable agriculture and ecological resilience. Plant cell biologists embrace captivating challenges, ranging from unraveling the fundamental functions of cells to unraveling the intricacies of plant development and adaptation.
The September 2023 Focus Issue of Plant Physiology, edited by Juan Dong, Jaimie Van Norman, Viktor Žárský, and Yan Zhang, spotlights research on cell polarity in plants. This webinar features speakers Sabine Müller, Arif Ashraf, and David Ušák, who share findings from their work appearing in this Focus Issue. The webinar is hosted by Plant Physiology Guest Editor Jaimie Van Norman and moderated by Plant Physiology Assistant Features Editor Joke De Jaeger-Braet.
SPEAKERS
Sabine Müller: On selected cell polarity mechanisms in plants
Sabine is a professor at the Department of Cell Biology at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen/Nuremberg (Germany). She earned her PhD on root development at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (Austria). Sabine works on molecular aspects of cellular morphogenesis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Her laboratory focuses on mechanisms of division plane selection, which she started investigating as a postdoc at UC San Diego (USA). Previously, she worked as a research group leader at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology in Tübingen (Germany), where she became interested in the establishment of polarity in pavement cells.
Arif Ashraf: The nucleus decides the future cell division site
Arif is an Assistant Professor in the Biology department at Howard University (USA). He is a plant cell biologist and his lab at Howard University utilizes Arabidopsis and maize as model systems to study nuclear envelope protein during movement and mitosis. Previously, he did his postdoctoral work with Michelle Facette at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on polarized nuclear movement during asymmetric cell division. During his graduate study in the Abidur lab, Arif first started working with polarized proteins and studied the polarly localized transporter proteins during plant development and environmental response. Arif hosts the plant biology podcast, No Time To Read, and is co-founder of the Plant Postdocs community.
David Ušák: Callose synthesis at the center point of plant development – An evolutionary insight
David is a first year PhD student at the Laboratory of Integrative Structural Biology, led by Roman Pleskot at Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences/Department of Experimental Plant Biology, Charles University (Czech Republic). His work aims to elucidate the complex relationship between the evolution and molecular architecture of callose synthase, and its functional implications during plant development. His previous endeavors dealt with the characterization of protein players involved in plant signaling as well as amino acid metabolic enzymes during repeated stress exposure. David is an avid cook, musician, and amateur Wikipedia editor.
MODERATOR
Joke De Jaeger-Braet, Plant Physiology Assistant Features Editor
Joke De Jaeger-Braet is a molecular plant biologist. She finished her PhD studies in 2022, mainly on the effect of heat stress on meiosis, with Arp Schnittger at the University of Hamburg (Germany), where she is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on several aspects of the meiotic cell division. Since the beginning of 2023, she has been an Assistant Features Editor at Plant Physiology.
HOST
Jaimie Van Norman, Plant Physiology Guest Editor
Jaimie is an Assistant Professor, Botany and Plant Sciences Department, University of California, Riverside. She is a developmental biologist working at the interface between cell and developmental biology in the root. At the end of her postdoc, she identified a set of transmembrane receptor-like kinases with polar localization in root cells. Since then, her lab has been working to understand the role of these proteins in root development as well as investigating the mechanisms by which their polarity is established and maintained.
This webinar and its recording are freely available thanks to the support of the American Society of Plant Biologists. Join today.
