iGRAD-Plant, the International Graduate School for Plant Science

Last week I was a guest of the PhD students of the iGRAD-Plant program, based at Heinrich Heine University (HHU), Düsseldorf (Germany). The program is an international joint PhD program with the nearby Research Center Jülich and the Genetics Program of Michigan State University. The program is funded by a grant (coordinated by Professor Andreas … Read more

From LUCA to Lily: 12 perspectives for teaching about plants

The other day I was talking to a friend about the need to demystify plants, so that teachers feel as confident in their teaching of plant biology as they do about animal biology. I wonder if sometimes we teach plants too much in isolation, so it’s not always clear how plants relate to other organisms … Read more

Recognizing featured Plant Cell first authors, September 2016

Recently, we’ve been profiling first authors of Plant Cell papers that are selected for In Brief summaries. Here are the first-author profiles from the September issue of The Plant Cell. Inmaculada Couso, featured first author of Synergism between inositol polyphosphates and TOR kinase signaling in nutrient sensing, growth control and lipid metabolism in Chlamydomonas Current … Read more

Nobel Fever strikes again

Every year at about this time we start to wonder who will be this year’s Nobel Prize recipients (the Prizes will be announced starting next Monday, October 3). Who are your predictions? As a reminder, here are some of the recent laureates (in Physiology or Medicine, or Chemistry) with their topics, taken from the wonderfully … Read more