Humans rely on plants for food, fuel, fiber, medicine, and building materials. Understanding how plants grow, how they reproduce and evolve, and how plants respond to their environment is essential to humanity's survival on planet earth. We are using methods from bioinformatics and genomics to investigate basic and applied questions in plant biology. We are also developing bioinformatics tools and educational materials to help plant biologists take full advantage of emerging methods in high-throughput biology, especially sequencing, high-performance computing, and metabolomics.
Some of the topics under investigation include:
- The role of polyploidy in plant evolution and breeding (J. Schlueter)
- Interactions between RNA splicing, circadian cycling, and environmental stresses (Loraine)
- How cytokinin hormones regulate plant growth and development (Loraine)
- Genome annotation, software development, and education (S. Schlueter, Loraine)
Photo by Ivory Clabaugh
Faculty in this Research Area:
Dr. Ann Loraine, Associate Professor
Dr. Jessica Schlueter, Assistant Professor