Despite the significance of nicotine, a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco, its biosynthesis has remained elusive. Here, the authors report the in vitro and in planta reconstruction of a fo...

Scientists have shown how plants produce powerful natural chemicals that could help in the production of new medicines in more environmentally friendly ways.

Nicotine is a neuroactive alkaloid produced by tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) as a defense against herbivory, and an addictive stimulant that has been used by humans for millennia. Despite its significan...

Leaves are built from multiple cell types and are structured to enable the conversion of carbon dioxide and water into sugars in the process of photosynthesis. Understanding how cell architecture im.....

We are currently recruiting for two post-doc positions in the Lichman lab that require similar skills and experience. We aim to do a joint recruitment process with a single interview. If you apply...

Plant cells are totipotent, meaning individual cells have the potential to develop into a full organism, a property unique to the zygote for animals. However, in most species for most cells, plant cells are not spontaneously totipotent, since they must be treated with specific hormone combinations to unlock their totipotency. Species within the Kalanchoe genus is unique as they spontaneously develop foliar embryos that are fully realized plantlets with shoot and root from notches along the edges of leaves. We speculate that the progenitor cells that give rise to these foliar embryos are totipotent, and we are using single cell techniques to identify & characterize them. In addition to being a fundamental process for plant biology, we foresee unlocking totipotency has many biotechnological applications, such as faciliating genetic transformation and the development of synthetic organs of biomanufacturing.

Position Summary The Li lab in the Department of Plant Biology is recruiting a postdoctoral research associate to work on project(s) in plant molecular biology, biochemistry, and/or genomics. The idea...

For International Women in Engineering Day, we spoke to three scientists at the Earlham Institute who reflected on their career paths in engineering biology.

Myths and fables from across the UK are illustrated in the set of stamps.

The regulation of cell division is broadly conserved across eukaryotes, governed by cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) to coordinate progression through the cell cycle. Plants have evolved a ...

Agroinfiltration, a method utilizing agrobacteria to transfer DNA into plant cells, is widely used for transient gene expression in plants. Besides the commonly used Agrobacterium strains, Rhizobium r...