In the News
Recent Salk news from the Plant biology team
Plant biologist Lena Mueller joins the Salk Institute to study plant-fungi relationships
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute will welcome Assistant Professor Lena Mueller to the faculty in January 2024. Mueller is a plant biologist who studies arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis—a beneficial interaction between plants …
Seeing the insides of plants in 3D
LA JOLLA—The cellular life inside a plant is as vibrant as the blossom. In each plant tissue—from root tip to leaf tip—there are hundreds of cell types that relay information …
Salk Institute launches collaboration with Autobahn Labs to accelerate drug discovery
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute and Autobahn Labs, an early-stage drug discovery incubator, will work together to identify and advance promising initial scientific discoveries through the preliminary steps of drug discovery …
Salk Institute receives $50 million from Hess Corporation to mitigate climate change through plant science
LA JOLLA—Hess Corporation is donating $50 million to the Salk Institute’s Campaign for Discovery: The Power of Science, a seven-year, $750 million comprehensive fundraising campaign to attract the people and …
Salk Institute Professors Joanne Chory and Wolfgang Busch to speak at PlantACT!
LA JOLLA—PlantACT! Plants for Climate Action, a European initiative founded to unite plant science experts in the effort to mitigate climate change, will welcome Salk Professors Joanne Chory and Wolfgang …
How light and temperature work together to affect plant growth
LA JOLLA—Plants lengthen and bend to secure access to sunlight. Despite observing this phenomenon for centuries, scientists do not fully understand it. Now, Salk scientists have discovered that two plant …
The best offense is a great defense for some carnivorous plants
LA JOLLA–Insect-eating plants have fascinated biologists for more than a century, but how plants evolved the ability to capture and consume live prey has largely remained a mystery. Now, Salk …
Renowned plant molecular geneticist Mary Lou Guerinot joins Salk Institute as Nonresident Fellow
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has named plant molecular geneticist Mary Lou Guerinot a Nonresident Fellow, a group of eminent scientific advisors that guide the Institute’s leadership. Guerinot holds the Ronald …
Salk Research Professor Todd Michael receives $2 million to build a genome repository for the cassava plant
Todd MichaelClick here for a high-resolution image.Credit: Salk InstituteLA JOLLA–Research Professor Todd Michael will receive nearly $2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to sequence the genomes of …
Salk Institute appoints David Lawrence executive director of Harnessing Plants Initiative
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute announced today the appointment of David Lawrence to the position of executive director of the Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI). In his new role, Lawrence will oversee …
Plants rely on the CLASSY gene family to diversify their epigenomes
LA JOLLA—What determines how a cell’s genome is regulated to ensure proper growth and development? Turns out, the parts of the genome that are turned on or off in each …
Six Salk professors named among most highly cited researchers in the world
LA JOLLA—Salk Professors Joanne Chory, Joseph Ecker, Rusty Gage, Satchidananda Panda, Reuben Shaw and Kay Tye have been named to the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate. The list identifies researchers who …
Study shines a light into “black holes” in the Arabidopsis genome
LA JOLLA—Salk scientists, collaborating with researchers from the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University, have sequenced the genome of the world’s most widely used model plant species, Arabidopsis thaliana, …
Secrets of quillwort photosynthesis could boost crop efficiency
LA JOLLA—The humble quillworts are an ancient group of about 250 small, aquatic plants that have largely been ignored by modern botanists. Now, Salk scientists, along with researchers from the …
Salk plant researchers launch collaboration to breed carbon-capturing sorghum
LA JOLLA—Researchers at the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) have established a five-year, $6.2 million collaboration with Nadia Shakoor, principal investigator and senior research scientist and her team at …
How plants quickly adapt to shifting environmental conditions
LA JOLLA—Scientists—and gardeners—have long known that plants grow taller and flower sooner when they are shaded by close-growing neighbors. Now, for the first time, researchers at the Salk Institute have …
Transforming atmospheric carbon into industrially useful materials
LA JOLLA—Plants are unparalleled in their ability to capture CO2 from the air, but this benefit is temporary, as leftover crops release carbon back into the atmosphere, mostly through decomposition. …
New protein helps carnivorous plants sense and trap their prey
LA JOLLA—The brush of an insect’s wing is enough to trigger a Venus flytrap to snap shut, but the biology of how these plants sense and respond to touch is …
