Mary Williams

I studied Biochemistry at Berkeley (BA), Plant Molecular Biology at Rockefeller (PhD), did a postdoc at Berkeley with Ian Sussex, and then spent 14 years as a Biology professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. In 2009 I started working at the American Society of Plant Biologists as Features Editor of the journal Plant Cell and the developer of Teaching Tools in Plant Biology. My passion lies in making it a little bit easier for students of all ages to understand plants and plant science research. I live in Glasgow, Scotland, with my family and our much adored dog.

What We’re Reading: Oct 28

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Featured Review: Evolution of ROS signaling ($) Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are partially reduced or excited forms of oxygen (for example, O2·−) that are reactive and damaging towards cellular components. Because ROS are produced as byproducts of metabolism, cells have evolved ROS detoxification pathways; more than 150 Arabidopsis genes contribute to ROS detoxification. Inupakutika et … Read more

What We’re Reading: October 21

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Featured Review: Update of Arabidopsis floral meristem formation ($) Genetic approaches using Arabidopsis have identified key players in the initiation and elaboration of floral meristems and flowers. These core findings are now expanded to encompass the roles of hormone fluxes and mechanical forces, and systems-wide modeling of gene regulatory networks. In this review, Denay et … Read more

EDITORIAL: The Plant Cell Begins Opt-in Publishing of Peer Review Reports

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As of January 2017, The Plant Cell will offer authors the option of associating a Peer Review Report with each research article. Reviewer anonymity will be strictly maintained. The reports will include the major comments from reviewers and the editors’ decision letters along with the authors’ response to reviewers for each submission of the manuscript … Read more

What We’re Reading: Oct 14th

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Featured Review: Celebrating 150 years since Mendel’s Discoveries ($) This review describes Mendel’s seminal work and how it laid the foundation for today’s plant breeding (as well as all of genetics). Smýka et al. trace the evolution of our understanding from Mendel’s discrete traits through continuous traits and quantitative trait loci (including the contributions of … Read more

A Fresh Look at the Role of Auxin in PIN Trafficking

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This Commentary, written by Emily Larson, is from the October issue of Plant Physiology. The spatial and temporal accumulation of auxins promotes and regulates polarized, gravitropic, and phototropic growth in plants. The proteins involved in initiating and maintaining the auxin gradients have been studied and remain active areas of research in the hormonal regulation of … Read more