The Mechanism of Plant Development Conference

Michael Scanlon is a Professor of Plant Biology at Cornell University. Research in the Scanlon lab focuses on mechanisms of plant development and the evolution of plant morphology. Using comparative developmental genetics and functional genomics, lab members are especially interested in the processes whereby meristems make leaves and embryos make meristems. His lab group exploits forward and reverse genetic mutants of maize, Arabidopsis, tomato, and moss as the foundation for comparative analyses of fundamental processes in plant development. 

Scanlon received his PhD in Genetics from Iowa State University, working with Alan Myers and Don Robertson on maize kernel development, and was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow studying leaf development with Michael Freeling at the University of California, Berkeley. After starting his laboratory at the University of Georgia in 1997, Scanlon moved his laboratory to Cornell University in 2006. 

Kimberly Gallagher is an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a plant cell biologist studying the mechanisms of protein trafficking in plants. Her research focuses on understanding how cytoplasmic proteins interact with the endomembrane to access plasmodesmata and transport between cells. Her research is motivated by a deep interest in the mechanism of development and understanding how protein trafficking contributes to cellular patterning, cell differentiation, developmental plasticity, and robustness. 

Gallagher began her career as a technician working with Gloria Coruzzi and Philip Benfey at New York University (NYU) where she studied nitrogen metabolism and root development. She completed her graduate study in Laurie Smith’s laboratory (at the University of North Carolina and the University of California, San Diego) working on the role of the cytoskeleton in asymmetric cell divisions in the maize leaf. For her postdoc, Gallagher returned to Benfey’s lab (at NYU and then Duke University) to work on root development in Arabidopsis thaliana. In 2006 she joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania where she continues her research on the Arabidopsis root.

Teva Vernoux is the CNRS Research Director in Plant Biology at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France. With his team, Vernoux is particularly interested in the role of hormonal signals in the self-organization of development systems. He uses the shoot apical meristem – the tissue that builds plant stems and their geometric organization – to understand, at different scales, how biological systems acquire self-construction properties. His research also builds on the development of innovative tools, including a sensor for visualization in vivo of one of the most important plant hormones, auxin, in plants. His research is based on a network of international collaboration with prominent researchers in the field of plants.