Wendy F. Boss, North Carolina State University, Raleigh This year’s Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award for lifelong service in plant biology goes to Wendy F. Boss. Wendy is recognized for her trailblazing three decades of work in the particularly challenging fields of phosphoinositide biochemistry and inositol phosphate signaling pathways; for her outstanding roles in … Read more
Cyril Zipfel, who heads The Sainsbury Laboratory, is the 2015 recipient of the Charles Albert Shull Award. Cyril played a leading role in the discovery of pattern-triggered immunity in plants, including the characterization of the bacterial peptides flagellin (flg22) and EF-Tu (elf18) as pattern-associated molecular markers that activate signaling by the receptor-like kinases FLS2 and … Read more
The inaugural 2015 ASPB Innovation Prize for Agricultural Technology is awarded jointly to Sherri Brown, David Fischhoff, Mike Koziel, and Fred Perlak. Their leadership of pioneering research and development teams led to the engineering of commercially viable varieties of cotton and corn that express derivatives of insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis. The insect-resistant crops that … Read more
We are proud to be a partner and join with the National Park Foundation to support the 2015 White House Easter Egg Roll. In addition to having volunteers on site, ASPB will have several plant science experts, the My Life as a Plant activity book, and mini garden necklaces to help kids dig into plant … Read more
On May 16 from 10 AM – 5:00 PM discover why some plants are hairy. Visit the trichome exhibit at the Sustainability Fair in Huntington, WV! You will find FREE basil plants, a raffle for a Plants are Fascinating basket, and an interactive exhibit about hairy plants. Did you know that plants have hairs called … Read more
Including workshops on metabolomics and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing Human population growth and climate change present major challenges to sustainable food production. Plant biologists are developing and applying new integrative Big Data approaches to address these challenges. This symposium, “Plant Stress-Omics in a Changing Climate”, will bring together scientists who are working at various –omics levels … Read more
One aspect of my research training and career development that I am very passionate about is the opportunity to mentor students. As such, I am always looking for opportunities to get involved with students at earlier stages in their education. So when I discovered PlantingScience.org, an online mentoring resource which was advertised on the American … Read more
We’ve now been publishing “Teaching Tools in Plant Biology” for five years, and it’s clear that this feature of The Plant Cell is being used across the world; the articles are regularly accessed from sites in more than 100 countries (the figure shows 2014 country distribution). We recently ran a survey to find out how … Read more
For years we’ve been asking people how they define a great teacher. One trait that repeatedly comes up is “enthusiasm.” Nobody enthuses about plants better than plant scientists, so we’re offering you a chance to “share your enthusiasm”. Have you got a passion for plant science? Do you have a favorite paper, experiment, topic, or … Read more
Over the past 24 months, we have been working diligently to develop a new community platform for the global plant science community. This new platform, which we have given the working title of “the Plant Science Exchange” (PSX) will launch this summer. All plant science students and professionals are invited to join. The initial level of … Read more
We are currently recruiting volunteers to help with several career-related activities. 1. In-Person Career Chats at Plant Biology 2015 This year we will also be hosting informal career conversations in the Career Center — Q&A style. There will be five sessions throughout the meeting, each centered on a different career path that could include any of the following … Read more
From “what do you want to be when you grow up?” to “academia, industry, or something else?” we’ve been asking and answering questions about our careers throughout our entire life. The question “what’s next?” can provoke all sorts of responses and it’s something PhDs and postdocs often aren’t encouraged to explore when the answer isn’t … Read more
Six Mile Charter Academy (SMCA) in partnership with the Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW), will celebrate the Fascination of Plants Day (FoPD) on May 16th at SMCA grounds. The purpose of this event is to disseminate the importance of plants in everyday lives of students and make them realize that life without plants is virtually … Read more
Students in the University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus (UMBC) Plant Molecular Biology course taught by Prof. Hua Lu can earn extra-point opportunities for the course this semester by participating in the Fascination of Plants Day on May 18th. The class will conduct events on the UMBC campus, such as making a poster to show how great plants … Read more
On February 14-15, visitors to the ASPB interactive exhibit on plant science will use plants to explore genetics and DNA. Kids of all ages also will play games that underscore how critical plants are to our planet and our daily lives. With plant-y interests primed, booth visitors will be invited to share Fascination of Plants … Read more
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship launches a research career spanning from aquatic algae to organic agriculture Fledgling Research As an undergraduate majoring in Biology at the University of Maryland, I was excited to explore the research opportunities that my school had to offer. My grandfather had taught as a plant physiology professor at Loyola University Maryland, … Read more
In the second of three Teaching Tools in Plant Biology spanning the topic of Plant Nutrition, we examine how macronutrients affect plant growth. Specifically, we look at (1) the availability of nutrients in the soil along with the effects of soil microbes and physical properties on their availability; (2) nutrient uptake from the external environment, … Read more
1st Pennsylvania plan shared for Fascination of Plants Day 2015! WoMo Artists, Maryann Worrell (Arcadia University) & Doug Mott will build a participatory installation called Crisis Farm: Seed to Table. With help from the Street Road Artists Space, this portable garden & gallery exhibition aim to cultivate community-wide fascination with essential elements of our natural … Read more
This year, ASPB is 90 years old. Over the past nine decades, we have changed in many ways to ensure that our Society remains relevant to and serves the needs of the membership. For example, we created a professional support staff; we installed an Executive Director; we grew the governance structure from five officers to … Read more
Time to Speak Up It is an honor to be elected your new president and to work in support of our common goals. It has been a productive year as president-elect, and it is a pleasure to share timely thoughts with you here. No question: This is an exciting time to be a plant scientist. … Read more