The Plant Cell webinar
Translating research from Arabidopsis to crop plants and beyond
When: Friday May 30, 2025 at
1 PM UTC | 6 AM PDT | 9 AM EDT | 10 AM Buenos Aires | 2 PM BST | 9 PM Beijing
About This Panel Discussion
Over the past three decades, substantial research efforts in plant science worldwide have focused on the model system Arabidopsis thaliana. Many of us have invested years in the study of Arabidopsis, driven by the notion that our findings will yield advancements in agriculture and natural ecosystems. Considering translation holistically as the gene functions, pathways, and technologies discovered and developed in Arabidopsis that inform our understanding of plants, Arabidopsis has had a powerful influence. In particular, the annotation of plant genomes heavily relies on the gene functions elucidated in Arabidopsis. Many technologies and techniques pioneered in Arabidopsis have been translated to crops and other plant species, and beyond.
The May 2025 issue of The Plant Cell, edited by Adrienne Roeder, Cris Argueso, Gabriela Auge, Xin Li, Lucia Strader, Cristobal Uauy, Mary Williams, and Shuang Wu, focuses on “Translational Research from Arabidopsis to Crop Plants and Beyond”. To celebrate this focus issue and to recognize the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Arabidopsis genome sequence, the editors of this focus issue have invited some of the distinguished scientists whose work appears in this focus issue to share their insights and perspectives.
Please join us for what is sure to be a lively discussion. Questions for the panelists can be submitted in advance at this link.
PANELISTS
Federico Ariel
Federico Ariel received his PhD from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Argentina. After his PhD, he obtained an EMBO long-term post-doc fellowship to join the group of Martin Crespi at the Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay in France. In 2016 he returned to Argentina and set up his own group at Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral (IAL). The Ariel group is now settled at IFIBYNE (UBA-CONICET, Buenos Aires) and currently studies the evolution of lncRNAs and their role in the dynamic 3D organization of the genetic information hosted in the nucleus of plant cells. Dr. Ariel is fascinated by the study of the molecular bases underlying the function of RNAs, especially the interplay between RNAs, chromatin conformation, and gene expression. His innovative work has significantly advanced our understanding of the role of long noncoding RNA in plants and on harnessing RNA-based technologies to replace harmful synthetic pesticides and create a safer environment for both humans and nature. In 2022, he co-founded APOLO Biotech, a start-up which aims at developing RNA-based technology for sustainable agriculture. He has received numerous awards including the UNESCO Al-Fozan Award for young scientists in STEM, the Santander X Global Award, and the Stimulus Prize of Fundación Bunge y Born in Argentina.
Michael Bevan
Michael Bevan was an undergraduate at the University of Aukland (New Zealand) and received his PhD at Cambridge University (UK) in Biochemistry. He moved to the US for a postdoc with Mary-Dell Chilton at Washington University in St. Louis, where he developed transgene expression systems using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. In 1980, he returned to the UK to set up his group at the Plant Breeding Institute, which later merged with the John Innes Centre. His expertise in plant molecular biology led to a pursuit of large-scale DNA sequencing, and he developed strategies for sequencing the Arabidopsis genome as part of the international Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. Subsequently he developed genomic resources for the model grass species Brachypodium as well as wheat. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), elected Fellow of the Royal Society, has received numerous awards including the Rank Prize, the Kumho Award, the Genetics Society Medal, and has been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to plant genomics. He is currently an Emeritus Fellow at the John Innes Centre, where he has helped developed their research strategy.
Anna Stepanova
Anna Stepanova received her BS and MS degrees from the University of Nevada, Reno and Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, Russia. She did her graduate studies on plant hormone ethylene in the laboratory of Joseph Ecker at UPenn and Salk and postdoctoral work on phytohormone interactions with Jose Alonso at NC State University. Anna is now Professor of Plant Biology and Genetics at NC State University. Her primary research interests continue to center around plant hormones, specifically the mechanisms of ethylene signal transduction, auxin biosynthesis, hormonal pathways’ crosstalk, gene regulation, and translational control of hormone responses. In her work, Anna is employing classical and molecular genetics, genomics and synthetic biology in Arabidopsis and tomato to decipher the mechanisms governing plant adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. Her research team is developing novel biotechnological tools and molecular methods that are not only shedding mechanistic light on fundamental plant biology, but also have potential to improve plant stress resilience, extend produce shelf life, and boost its nutritional value.
Xiaolan Zhang
Xiaolan Zhang is a professor of Vegetable Sciences at China Agricultural University. She received her BS/MS from China Agricultural University and PhD from University of Georgia. For her postdoctoral research, she worked with Elliot Meyerowitz at Caltech on flower development in Arabidopsis. In her own lab, the main research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of shoot branching and fruit shape variations in cucumber. The purpose of her research is to develop molecular breeding tools to create new cucumber varieties with ideal shoot architecture and superior fruit quality.
HOSTS
Adrienne Roeder
Adrienne Roeder is a Professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Section of Plant Biology and Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. She completed her PhD at the University of California, San Diego, working with Marty Yanofsky on valve-margin patterning in fruit (silique) development in Arabidopsis. She conducted post-doctoral work with Elliot Meyerowitz at Caltech, using live imaging and computational modeling to study cell size patterning in Arabidopsis sepal development. She started her lab at Cornell in 2011. Adrienne’s lab uses computational morphodynamics to understand the roles of stochasticity and robustness in plant development: specifically, how cells with variable sizes are created and how organs form with reproducible sizes and shapes despite cellular variability.
Cris Argueso
Cris Argueso received a Bachelor’s in Biology and Master’s in Plant Genetics from Campinas State University, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working on maize and rice genetics of amino acid metabolism. She received a PhD from Cornell University in Plant Biology, where her research was on systemic acquired resistance and salicylic acid signaling. That was followed by postdoctoral work in the lab of Joe Kieber, at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on plant hormone biology and signaling. During her postdoc Dr. Argueso discovered that cytokinins can act as priming agents against disease, through crosstalk with the salicylic acid pathway. At Colorado State her lab focuses on mechanisms of hormonal crosstalk, and how they regulate many aspects of plant growth and stress tolerance, and how engineering of phytohormonal crosstalk can be used to achieve specific outcomes of plant stress resilience and growth.
