Growing up in Germany, Philipp Zerbe knew he wanted to be a biologist by the time he was 5 years old. In fact, he scribbled the decision to become a ‘Biologe’ down on paper, which his parents kept—and gifted to him upon becoming an assistant professor of plant biology in the College of Biological Sciences at UC Davis in 2014.
Scientists have successfully sequenced the coast redwood and giant sequoia genomes, completing the first major milestone of a five-year project to develop the tools necessary to study these forests’ genomic diversity.
Plant biology Ph.D. student and UC Davis Grad Slam winner Katherine Murphy studies medicinal terpenes found in corn that could help bolster other crops' defenses. She’ll compete in the University of California Grad Slam Finals on May 10 in San Francisco.
UC Grad Slam is an annual contest in which master’s and Ph.D. students across UC campuses compete to sum up their research for a general audience. Learn more about Grad Slam Finalist Katherine Murphy, a plant biology graduate student.
Assistant Professor Jennifer Gremer showed an interest in plant life at an early age, but her path to scientific research wasn’t straightforward. She dabbled in many fields related to plant sciences, from working as an interpretive ranger in Yosemite National Park to performing botanical surveys for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Assistant Professor Patrick Shih was recently selected as a 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Computational and Evolutionary Molecular Biology. The fellowship will help fund his research to reconstruct the evolution of photosynthesis.
Plant biologists at UC Davis have discovered a way to make crop plants replicate through seeds as clones. The long-sought discovery could make it easier to propagate high-yielding, disease-resistant or climate-tolerant crops and make them available to the world’s farmers.
In a new study appearing in Nature, Assistant Professor Nitzan Shabek and his colleagues add structural definition to the strigolactone signaling process in plants.
In a study appearing in Science, researchers show that the pesticide imidacloprid, which has been sold in the U.S. since 1994, disrupts bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) nest behavior, causing reduced growth in exposed colonies.
With robotics, computers and advanced genetics, researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have established a core set of genes that help plants metabolize nitrogen, the key to plant growth and crop yield.
