Center of Plant Developmental Biology at University of California, Berkeley

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Dr. Michael Freeling and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley will establish a Biological Research Center for Plant Developmental Biology. The center will provide salaries and supplies for two technicians and up to five graduate students, funds for a seminar program and modest funds for research to be performed in the center members' own laboratories. The technicians will develop new techniques and train others in their use. Individual research programs will include studies of development of the corn leaf ligule, the role of cytoplasmic structure in corn microsporogenesis, microbe-plant interactions, root growth, embryogenesis by cultured cells, the regulation of development by ethylene, and other aspects of plant gene regulation. Travel funds will be used to support attendance at scientific meetings by students and to bring approximately five outside speakers a year to lecture on aspects of plant development. An annual center retreat is also planned. The center's equipment and technical staff will be housed in a single large laboratory in a new Plant Biology Building currently under construction. This center, unique in its size and goals, will emphasize the application of modern and classical techniques of genetics and cell biology to understanding the development of a variety of specialized cells in corn and other plants. The research will address questions which are unique to plant systems, or for which plants provide particularly useful experimental models. Among others, these include the study of the development of the leaf and of pollen. An important focus of the center will be a training program that will support the recruitment and training of graduate students and a seminar series. Besides increasing the depth and sophistication of our understanding of plant development, the center should play an significant role in training a new generation of plant researchers in an area of emerging importance.