Plant Biology Graduate Program UMass Amherst

03/27/2020

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting now

Dear PB,

Please join in on the 'Daily Zoom Coffee/Tea Time' as a 'Virtual Day-Starter' that begins today, Friday, March 27th, 2020 from 9:30 am to 10:00 am.

Our next one will be on Monday.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/659134217

Meeting ID: 659 134 217

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05/02/2019

Please join us for today’s PB seminar! Dr. Elizabeth Vierling will host Drs. Bill Miller and Lynn Adler, as well as UMass Extension Staff, for this seminar: 'Collaborating with UMass Extension to advance agricultural research and public education'. The seminar will be part presentation and part discussion/Q & A. The goal is to identify opportunities for creating mutually beneficial collaborations and linkages between CAFE/Extension and faculty and students in the Plant Biology program.

The seminar will start at 4:00pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

04/25/2019

Good morning everyone. Please join us for today’s PB seminar by Dr. Lila Gierasch from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UMass Amherst. Dr. Gierasch will give us a talk entitled ‘The challenges and joys of scientific publishing: seen from a journal editor’s viewpoint’.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

04/18/2019

Hegeman Lab | Plant Metabolomics

Please join us for today’s PB seminar by Dr. Adrian Hegeman from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Hegeman will present a talk titled ‘Methodology for assessing metabolic phenotypes’. His group is working to make mass spectrometry approaches accessible for linking macroscopic phenomena to their molecular underpinnings to generate new insights into plant biology and plant-derived products. You can found more information about his research here: http://hegemanlab.cfans.umn.edu
The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

04/11/2019

Dr. Barbara Valent | Faculty | Plant Pathology | Kansas State University

Good morning everyone. We are excited to welcome Dr. Barbara Valent from Kansas State University as this week ’s PB seminar speaker. Dr. Valent will present a talk titled ‘From mobile genes to mobile proteins: effectors in the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae’. Dr. Valent focuses on understanding effector biology and biotrophic strategies used by the ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe (Pyricularia) oryzae to cause the devastating rice blast disease. Her lab is currently applying live cell microscopy and functional genomics to understand how the fungus colonizes living rice cells. The goals of her lab are to leverage knowledge gained from blast research to protect U.S. rice production from blast disease and to prepare for and prevent establishment of wheat blast disease in the U.S. More information about her research can be found here: https://www.plantpath.k-state.edu/people/faculty/valent/

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

Research in the Valent Lab focuses on understanding effector biology and biotrophic strategies used by the ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe (Pyricularia) oryzae to cause the devastating rice blast disease. Her laboratory is currently applying live cell microscopy and functional genomics to understand h...

04/04/2019

Professor Lee-Parsons | Northeastern University

Please join us for today’s PB seminar by Dr. Carolyn Lee-Parsons from Northeastern University! Dr. Lee-Parsons will present a talk titled ‘Engineering the production of medicinal natural products from plant cell cultures’. Her research focuses on biochemical engineering, specifically the area of metabolic engineering. Her group is applying metabolic engineering principles and methodologies to improve the production of important compounds, i.e. critical plant-derived pharmaceuticals or biofuels, from plant cell & tissue cultures and microalgae cultures. You can found more information about his research here: https://web.northeastern.edu/lee-parsons/

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Northeastern University

03/28/2019

fafu-ucr-hbmc.ucr.edu

Good morning everyone. We are excited to welcome Dr. Shuang Wu back and present his work for today’s seminar. Dr. Wu obtained his Ph.D. in our PB program 👏 and now works at Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University. He will present a talk entitled ‘Beyond cell wall: lignification and suberization in plant roots’. His research focuses on the understanding of how cell division and cell fate determination of the plant root systems are spatiotemporally controlled. More information about his research can be found here: http://fafu-ucr-hbmc.ucr.edu/shuang.html

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

03/19/2019

Weng Lab

Seminar today!!!
We will have a joint MCB/PB seminar today at ISB 221. Dr. Jing Ke Weng will present a talk titled ‘Metabolic Evolution in Plants’. Dr. Weng had an illustrious early career studying the evolution and diversity of specialized metabolism to probe fundamental biological questions in plants. He applies the knowledge of biosynthetic origins of natural products to understand their role in human health and disease as well as discovery and engineering of metabolites for biotechnological application. More information about his research can be found here: http://wenglab.wi.mit.edu

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in ISB, Room 221. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

03/07/2019

Research | Zhongchi Liu's Lab

Good morning everyone. We are excited to welcome Dr. Zhongchi Liu from the University of Maryland as this week ’s jonint PB/SSA seminar speaker. Dr. Liu will present a talk titled ‘Genomic and genetic analyses linking genes to reproductive traits in the wild strawberry’. Her lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms of controlling flower and fruit development and applying this knowledge into agriculture. More information about her research can be found here: http://www.clfs.umd.edu/CBMG/faculty/Liu/lab/Research.html.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

02/14/2019

biography.omicsonline.org

Good morning everyone! We are excited to welcome Dr. Yong-Hwan Lee from Soeul National University to present the joint PB/SSA seminar: Systems biology initiative for the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae. Lee’s group works on the molecular mechanisms of rice blast, a compelling model system for studying host-parasite interactions. Meanwhile, his group has developed a bioinformatics portal system to archive enormous volumes of data on genetic diversities that exist among pathogen populations and genomes, which will be devoted to understand and predict the spatial and temporal variation of fungal pathogenesis. More information about his research can be found here: http://biography.omicsonline.org/korea/seoul-national-university/lee-yonghwan-475413.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

02/07/2019

Jackson Lab |

Please join us for today’s PB seminar by Dr. David Jackson from the Cold Spring Harbor Labs. Dr. Jackson will present a talk titled ‘New receptor pathways in maize stem cell regulation and impact on crop yields’. His lab studies genes and signals that regulate plant growth and architecture through effects on stem cell maintenance and identity and their work has implications on crop yield. You can found more information about his research here: http://jacksonlab.labsites.cshl.edu/

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

We are interested in how the shape or morphology of plants is determined. This is a fundamental question in developmental biology, with downstream applications in plant productivity and crop yields. Specifically, we aim to define the molecular and genetic pathways that control development. Recently,...

01/31/2019

UVM Crop Genetics

We’re excited to welcome Dr. Eric von Wettberg from the University of Vermont for today PB seminar. Dr. Wettberg will present a talk entitled "The Queen of Sheba's chickpeas: the divergence of crops and their associated microbes after domestication”. The research interests in the Wettberg Lab are broad, encompassing agroecology, conservation, ecology, and evolution. They are a group of evolutionary ecologists who focus on how the population bottlenecks, that have occurred during either crop domestication and breeding, affect genetic diversity and stress tolerance in crops, crop wild relatives and in endangered species. More information about his research can be found here: http://ericvonwettberg.wixsite.com/laboratory.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

01/24/2019

Voytas Lab | College of Biological Sciences

Good morning everyone! There will be our first seminar (BTP, IALS, PB seminar) this semester TODAY! We are very excited to welcome Dr. Dan Voytas from the University of Minnesota to give us a talk about ‘Editing the plant genome’. Dr. Voytas works on the targeted genome modification in plants which has wide applications ranging from understanding plant gene function to developing crop plants with new traits of value. His current work is focused on optimizing delivery of nucleases and donor DNA molecules to plant cells to more efficiently achieve targeted genetic alterations. For more information on the research being conducted in the Voytas Lab, please visit: https://cbs.umn.edu/voytas-lab/home.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

NEWS & UPDATES Dan Voytas featured in Science magazine profile: The plant engineerVoytas Receives Inaugural Genome Engineering Award

12/21/2018

Congratulate our NINE PB students who received Lotta M. Crabtree Fellowship in Production Agriculture to support them in 2019 Spring! Kelly Allen, Rebecca Brennan, Jedy Chilufya, Stavroula Fili, Harry Klein, Ian McCahill, Jarrett Man, Christina Stonoha and Xiang Li! Additionally, today is the last day of this semester. Have a wonderful holiday!!!

12/13/2018

Yankee swap is today! Delicious food and beverages will be served. Meet us at 4:30 pm in French Hall, Room 209! We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon! 🥳🥳🥳

12/06/2018

Home | Plant Computational Genomics Lab - Jill Wegrzyn

Good morning everyone! Please join us for the last seminar this semester. Dr. Jill Wegrzyn from the University of Connecticut will give us a presentation ‘ Beyond genomics: data integration and cyberinfrastructure for forest health and productivity’. Dr. Wegrxzyn focuses on the computational analysis of genomic and transcriptomic sequences from non-model plant species and also develops web-based applications that integrate data across domains to facilitate the forest geneticist or ecologist's ability to analyze, share, and visualize their data. More information can be found here: http://compgenomics.lab.uconn.edu.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

11/29/2018

Plant Morphology | Evolutionary History and Plant Development

Good morning everyone! We are excited to welcome Dr. William Friedman from Harvard University for the joint OEB and PB seminar. Dr. Friedman will present a talk entitled ‘ sibling cooperation and interparental conflict in a seed: how plant mothers, fathers, and siblings behave during the act of reproduction in flowering plants’. This seminar will examine the evolutionary origin of a genetically biparental embryo-nourishing tissue (endosperm) in the common ancestor of flowering plants, as well as the consequent evolutionary and developmental effects of the insertion of a paternal genome into the “business” of maternal embryo-nourishing strategy. More information about his research can be found here: http://plantmorphology.org.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

11/15/2018

Center for Plant Cell Biology: Members

We are excited to welcome Dr. Sean Cutler from the University of California Riverside for today PB seminar. Dr. Cutler will present a talk entitled ‘ Engineering plant signal transduction for water smart crops’. The research interests in the Cutler Lab are the identifications of new factors that regulate Arabidopsis cell expansion and the analysis and exploitation of natural variation using small molecules. More information about his research can be found here: https://cepceb.ucr.edu/people/cutler.html.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

The Center for Plant Cell Biology addresses significant questions in plant biology on a molecular level to meet such global challenges as improved nutrition, increased crop yield, resistance to pests, sustainable biofuels, and environmental conservation. To accomplish this, the Center engages its wo...

11/08/2018

Kaplinsky lab at Swarthmore College

Please join us for the joint PB and MCB seminar by Dr. Nick Kaplinsky from Swarthmore College. Dr. Kaplinsky will present a talk titled "Using hacked Illumina sequencers to identify the spliceosome as a cellular thermostat". More information about his research can be found here:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/nkaplin1/research.html.
The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you!

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11/01/2018

Page not found | Department of Plant & Microbial Biology | UC Berkeley

We are very excited to welcome Dr. Sarah Hake from the University of California for today Plant Biology Seminar. Dr. Hake will present a talk entitled ‘ The regulation of architecture and sex determination in maize.’. Dr. Hake studies plant development, especially, the regulation of meristem activity and works mainly on maize. More information can be found here: http://plantandmicrobiology.berkeley.edu/profile/hake. People who are interested in plant development, meristem, maize definitely should come.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm. We are looking forward to seeing you all this afternoon!

10/25/2018

moghelab

Please join us for today’s PB seminar by Dr. Gaurav Moghe from Cornell University. Dr. Moghe will present a talk titled ‘The emergence of novelty in plant specialized metabolism’. His research focuses on the evolution of metabolic pathways in plant, and integrates techniques from bioinformatics, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, and phylogenetics. People who are interested in metabolic pathways, evolution and interdisciplinary research definitely should come. You can find more information here: www.moghelab.org.

The seminar will start at 4:00 pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm.

We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Home

10/18/2018

Geunhwa Jung | Stockbridge

Good morning everyone. We are excited to welcome Dr. Geunhwa Jung, a faculty member in our Plant Biology Program, as this week seminar speaker! Dr. Jung will present a talk titled “A xenobiotic detoxification pathway through transcriptional regulation in filamentous fungi” More information about his research : stockbridge.cns.umass.edu/geunhwa-jung.

The seminar will start at 4:00pm, in Morrill Science Center 2 South, Room 222. Refreshments will be served at 3:50 pm.

We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Curriculum Vitae Professor of Turfgrass Pathology and Plant Breeding & Genetics Education 1995 Ph.D., Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 1992 M.S., Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 1988 B.S., Horticulture, Chungnam National University