Coralie Salesse-Smith
Research interests One aspect of ensuring future food security is the ability to produce more crop products using fewer resources – such as land, water, and fertilizer – in the face of climate change. In the Salesse-Smith lab, we are helping to address this challenge by using synthetic biology to study the molecular mechanisms of carbon metabolism and photosynthesis, with the goal of engineering crops with improved productivity and resilience. Our main target is the enzyme Rubisco, which is responsible for nearly all biological carbon fixation, but we are also interested in other components of leaf carbon assimilation. Our research combines plant […]
Wayne Maddison
Research Interests My research arose from a fascination with the diversity of forms and behaviours of jumping spiders, which led to systematics, which led to phylogenetic theory and computer programming. My work continues to be both empirical, on spiders, and theoretical, on the use of phylogeny in evolutionary inference. Team Members U. Garcilazo CruzK. Marathe
Patrick Keeling
Research Interests Research in the lab is generally related to the molecular evolution and cell biology of eukaryotes, in particular the protists (i.e., eukaryotes that are not animals, fungi, or plants). Protists are mostly single celled organisms, but are many are extremely complex and sophisticated despite their small size. Protists also represent the greatest part of eukaryotic diversity, although most protists groups are very poorly studied, especially at the molecular level. We use molecular biology, microscopy, and increasingly use genome wide analyses such as EST sequencing and genome sequence surveys to study a number of questions in different lineages of protists. […]
Jörg Bohlmann
Research Interests Plants are sessile organisms which have the ability to survive under constantly changing environmental conditions over lifespans of several weeks to hundreds of years. To cope with biotic or abiotic stress, plants have evolved a complex specialized metabolism which contains hundreds of thousands of unique small molecules. Many of these bioactive molecules have beneficial applications for humans. Through genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and biochemical approaches our laboratory is exploring two aspects of plant specialized metabolism: (1) the role it plays in plant defense, and (2) how its genes and enzymes can be prospected for metabolic engineering of high-value bioproducts. The foundation of our research program has concentrated primarily on the terpenoid pathway, […]
Laura Wegener Parfrey
Research Interests Research in the Parfrey lab focuses on the microbial ecology of eukaryotic microbes (protists) and bacteria. We work primarily in two distinct ecosystems: the mammalian gut and coastal ecosystems. Our gut microbiome research combines descriptive research with manipulative experiments to ask what is the ‘normal’ community of eukaryotic microbes (aka “parasites”) residing in humans and other mammals, and what are the consequences of losing our microbial diversity? Along coastal British Columbia we are investigating how water column and biofilm microbes colonize marine hosts (invertebrates, seaweed, and sea grass), and how these host-associated microbes impact host and ecosystem health. Team […]
Loren Rieseberg
Research Interests My lab employs population genomic approaches, computational methods, and field and greenhouse studies to study plant adaptation and speciation. We are especially interested in how gene flow, both within and between species, influences these processes. We also study factors that affect rates of gene flow, including reproductive barriers such as niche differentiation, phenological isolation, and pollen competition, as well as chromosomal inversions that impede gene flow mainly by suppressing recombination. On a more practical level, we integrate genomic and phenotypic data with results from laboratory and greenhouse experiments to identify evolutionary changes that causally drive plant invasions, mine natural […]
Lacey Samuels
Research Interests The Samuels lab studies how plant cells secrete their cell walls, both the polysaccharides and specialized cell wall components such as lipids and lignin. Our approach is to integrate cell biology with molecular biology and biochemistry to put cell wall biosynthesis and secretion into a cellular context. All plant growth, including agricultural and forestry production, is based on the organized assembly of plant cells into tissues, organs and whole plants. The plant cell wall determines the shape of the cell and connects cells into tissues and higher order structures, thus plant growth depends on cell wall production. In addition, terrestrial plants have evolved specialized […]
Xin Li
Research Interests The long-term goal of our research program is to understand the molecular mechanisms of plant innate immunity. We study plant defense against pathogen infection in the context of gene regulation, protein-protein interaction and signal transduction using the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Our program aims to discover new regulatory components of plant disease resistance and to elucidate the biochemical functions of a number of regulators we have already identified. Understanding the innate ability of plants to defend themselves against pathogen infection promises to revolutionize disease control practices in our fields using environmentally friendly strategies. A model depicting the involvement of the […]
Liang Song
Research Interests 1. Abscisic acid-regulated gene expression networks Animals often employ a fight-or-flight strategy when facing challenges. By contrast, plants handle challenges on site through many molecular, morphological, and physiological solutions. The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is a nexus molecule of stress responses and plant development. Without proper ABA responses, plants would make unwise decisions such as germinating prematurely or failing to preserve water and other resources during a drought. The ABA responses are orchestrated through the expression of thousands of genes and the regulation of these gene products. Our lab studies ABA-regulated gene expression, and the specific regulation in […]
Curtis Suttle
Research Interests There has been increasing interest in the biology and ecology of viruses and other pathogens that infect microalgae. Viruses that infect bacteria and phytoplankton play a key role in the dynamics of organisms and nutrients in marine and freshwater ecosystems, and consequently also affect nutrient and energy cycling. A primary research focus of my laboratory is to understand the biology and ecology of viruses that infect microalgae and cyanobacteria. Research interests include 1) discerning the effect of viruses on primary productivity and phytoplankton population dynamics; 2) isolating and characterizing novel viruses from marine environments; 3) developing molecular approaches for […]
Geoffrey Wasteneys
Research Interests 1) The control of microtubule dynamics by microtubule-associated proteins.2) Microtubule polymer activities and the spatial organization of cortical microtubule arrays.3) The function of cortical microtubule arrays in the mechanical properties of cellulosic cell walls. Team Memebers Laryssa Halat, PhD CandidateMeng Li, PhD CandidateAida Rakei, PhD CandidateJayamini Jayawardhane, PhD CandidateSean Ritter, PhD CandidateBreanne Bali, MSc CandidateDonglei Li, MSc CandidateChak-Chung (Tommy) Kuo, undergraduate researcher Selected Publications For all past and current publications visit: https://wasteneyslab.wixsite.com/ubcwasteneys/publications Marcus Woodley, Adam Mulvihill, Miki Fujita, Geoffrey Wasteneys (2018) Exploring microtubule-dependent cellulose-synthase-complex movement with high precision particle tracking. Plants 7, 53, doi:10.3390/plants7030053 Ruan Y, Halat L, Khan D, […]
Jeannette Whitton
Research Interests I am a plant evolutionary biologist with interests that span the areas of population genetics, phylogenetics and speciation. For me, questions surrounding the nature of plant species are boundlessly interesting – How do populations of a species, scattered across hundreds or thousands of kilometers, maintain their genetic and evolutionary integrity? How do factors such as changes in chromosome numbers and breeding system influence the ecological and genetic interactions of populations that differ in these traits? How does natural selection influence the divergence of populations and groups of populations when gene flow still occurs between diverging units? These are just […]
Yuelin Zhang
Research Interests Sensing and defending against microbial infections is essential to the survival of multicellular organisms. Recognition of PAMPs (pathogen-associated molecular patterns) or effector proteins from pathogens by plant immune receptors leads to activation of downstream signaling cascades and plant resistance to pathogens at the infection site. Activation of local defense further induces a secondary immune response in the distal parts of plants termed systemic acquired resistance (SAR). Our research is focused on the following two areas. 1. Signal Transduction Pathways downstream of Plant Immune ReceptorsIn plants, there are three main classes of immune receptors. The largest class encodes intracellular NB-LRR […]
Quentin Cronk
Research Interest Our lab integrates comparative genomics, molecular developmental biology and evolutionary biology to study plant form. We are interested in the how different morphologies evolve in plants, as well as the functional significance of morphological differences between species. Our model organisms for this include the Leguminosae (floral morphology) and black cottonwood, Populus trichocarpa (adaptive evolution of trees). Next generation sequencing of whole genomes and transcriptomes is an important part of our work. Funding for research in our lab comes from the Discovery Grants programme of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Genome Canada. Team Members […]