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Plants are essential for human life, providing both the food we eat and the air we breathe. Recent technological advances are driving tremendous progress in our understanding of plant biology and our ability to develop needed improvements. At Rice University, we are using modern molecular, genetic, and bioinformatic tools to address such fundamental questions as how plants develop, respond to their environment, sense and respond to signaling molecules, and synthesize an incredible diversity of chemical compounds. This work is exploiting the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, in which we can generate thousands of transgenic plants, isolate mutants defective in almost any process, and rapidly clone the genes affected by these mutations. The Arabidopsis genome is completely sequenced, which enables whole genome analyses, such as transcriptional and protein profiling.
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Bonnie Bartel: Genetic approaches to understanding peroxisome biogenesis, microRNAs, and plant responses to and metabolism of the growth hormone auxin (lab home page)
Janet Braam: Regulation and functions of calcium sensor proteins and cell wall modifying enzymes in plant growth and responses to the environment (lab home page)
Michael Covington : Using functional genomics approaches to study the physiological relevance of the plant circadian clock in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Seiichi P. T. Matsuda: Genetic and analytical chemistry investigations of sterol and terpene metabolism and function in plantsAdjunct faculty:
Richard A. Dixon (Director, Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK): Regulation and genetic manipulation of plant phenylpropanoid biosynthesis
Kendal Hirschi (Associate Professor, USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX): Molecular and genetic analysis of plant nutrient acquisition and calcium signal transduction
The Center for Plant Science
