Arabidopsis (rockcress) is a genus in the family Brassicaceae. They are small flowering plants related to cabbage and mustard. This genus is of great interest since it contains thale cress, one of the model organisms used for studying plant biology and the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced. Changes in thale cress are easily observed, making it a very useful model.
Arabidopsis thaliana, the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally considered a weed.
Amyloplasts are a type of plastid, double-enveloped organelles in plant cells that are involved in various biological pathways. Amyloplasts are specifically a type of leucoplast, a subcategory for colorless, non-pigment-containing plastids. Amyloplasts are found in roots and storage tissues, and they store and synthesize starch for the plant through the polymerization of glucose. Starch synthesis relies on the transportation of carbon from the cytosol, the mechanism by which is currently under debate.
Viola pubescens, commonly called the downy yellow violet, is a plant species of the genus Viola and is classified within the subsection Nudicaules of section Chamaemelanium. It is a widespread North American violet found in rich, mesic woodlands, and sometimes in meadows, from Minnesota and Ontario east to Nova Scotia and south to Virginia. V. pubescens produces two different types of flowers during the season, including chasmogamous flowers in the early spring and cleistogamous flowers summer through fall.
Cleistogamy is a type of automatic self-pollination of certain plants that can propagate by using non-opening, self-pollinating flowers. Especially well known in peanuts, peas, and pansies, this behavior is most widespread in the grass family. However, the largest genus of cleistogamous plants is Viola.
Lewis Jeffrey Feldman is a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the University of California Botanical Garden and previously Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Natural Resources. He is in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. Feldman has taught at Berkeley since 1978. He received Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1996. Feldman's research focuses on regulation of development in meristems/stem cells, root gravitropism, and redox regulation of plant development.
Gloria M. Coruzzi is an American molecular biologist specializing in plant systems biology and evolutionary genomics.
Frederick M Ausubel is an American molecular biologist and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston and is the Karl Winnacker Distinguished Investigator in the Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston., Massachusetts.
Steve A. Kay is a British-born chronobiologist who mainly works in the United States. Dr. Kay has pioneered methods to monitor daily gene expression in real time and characterized circadian gene expression in plants, flies and mammals. In 2014, Steve Kay celebrated 25 years of successful chronobiology research at the Kaylab 25 Symposium, joined by over one hundred researchers with whom he had collaborated with or mentored. Dr. Kay, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., briefly served as president of The Scripps Research Institute. and is currently a professor at the University of Southern California. He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2011.
Winslow Russell Briggs was an American plant biologist who introduced techniques from molecular biology to the field of plant biology. Briggs was an international leader in molecular biological research on plant sensing, in particular how plants respond to light for growth and development and the understanding of both red and blue-light photoreceptor systems in plants. His work has made substantial contributions to plant science, agriculture and ecology.
Karen Koch is a plant biologist in the horticultural science department in the University of Florida. She is a professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (PMCB) Program, Horticultural Sciences Department, and Genetics Institute at University of Florida.
Keiko Torii is a Japanese plant scientist and academic teaching at the University of Texas at Austin as of September 2019.
Dmitri Nusinow is an American chronobiologist who studies plant circadian rhythms. He was born on November 7, 1976, in Inglewood, California. He currently resides in St. Louis, and his research focus includes a combination of molecular, biochemical, genetic, genomic, and proteomic tools to discover the molecular connections between signaling networks, circadian oscillators, and specific outputs. By combining these methods, he hopes to apply the knowledge elucidated from the Arabidopsis model to other plant species.
Jian-Kang Zhu is a plant scientist, researcher and academic. He is a Senior Principal Investigator in the Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He is also the Academic Director of CAS Center of Excellence in Plant Sciences.
John Z. Kiss is an American biologist known for his work on the gravitational and space biology of plants. Kiss is senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He has also served as dean of the Graduate School at the University of Mississippi. and distinguished professor and chair of the botany department at Miami University. He has worked with NASA since 1987 and served as principal investigator on eight spaceflight experiments on the Space Shuttle, the former Russian space station Mir, and on the International Space Station. His research focuses on the sensory physiology of plants in space. He received the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal in 2014. In 2021, Asteroid Kiss 8267 was named in his honor, a recognition that coincided with his receipt of the 2021 COSPAR International Cooperation Medal. His international collaboration on a spaceflight project with NASA and the European Space Agency has led to the discovery of novel sensory mechanisms in plants.
Jennifer Lyn Nemhauser is an American biologist and a Professor of Developmental Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. She specializes in synthetic biology, genomics, and signaling dynamics in plants.
Jen Sheen is a biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School who is known for her work on plant signaling networks. She is an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Elaine Munsey Tobin is a professor of molecular, cell, and developmental biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Tobin is recognized as a Pioneer Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB).
Christoph Benning is a German–American plant biologist. He is an MSU Foundation Professor and University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Benning's research into lipid metabolism in plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria, led him to be named Editor-in-Chief of The Plant Journal in October 2008.
Stacey Harmer is a chronobiologist whose work centers on the study of circadian rhythms in plants. Her research focuses on the molecular workings of the plant circadian clock and its influences on plant behaviors and physiology. She is a professor in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis.
