Science Talk

I have been studying the chemically mediated interactions between insects and plants. In particular, I have studied on the ecological functions of volatiles emitted from plants infested by herbivorous arthropods (herbivory-induced plant volatiles: HIPVs) and volatiles emitted from artificially damaged plants (primarily green leaf volatiles: GLVs). Our research group has demonstrated that HIPVs and GLVs attract the carnivorous natural enemies of herbivores (induced indirect defense), and activate defense responses in neighboring undamaged plants (plant-plant communication). In this presentation, I will discuss our research findings related to plant-plant communication under laboratory and field conditions. First, I will present studies of plant-plant communication, focusing on ecological functions and the specificity of plants' gene expression responses to specific plant volatiles. In these studies, lima bean plants, Arabidopsis thaliana, and tomato plants are used. Then, I will present data on the application of volatiles emitted from artificially damaged weeds on crop seedlings, such as soybeans, rice, and corn, to improve their performance. Compared to unexposed seedlings, those exposed to volatiles from artificially damaged weeds for two to three weeks exhibited superior defense against subsequent herbivory. At harvest, the yield of exposed crops was significantly higher than that of unexposed crops. These results suggest that exposing crop seedlings to volatiles from artificially damaged weeds could artificially induce volatile-mediated plant-plant communication, which could contribute to crop production.

Objects in the world around us are composed of countless numbers of particles, such as protons and electrons, all tirelessly interacting with each other to give our world its shape.  At the same time we are continuously bombarded by other particles called neutrinos whose interactions are so rare that perhaps only one or two will interact with any of us during our lifetimes. They seem to provide our world little to no structure at all. However, these feeble particles are nonetheless thought to have been instrumental in the formation of our present universe. Importantly, neutrinos can be found almost everywhere, from bananas to nuclear reactors to stars and their unusual behavior may explain why the universe has any of these objects, and humans for that matter, in the first place.  This presentation will explain the unexpectedly large role these weakly interacting particles play in our lives today, how we detect them, and how studying them can help us understand some of the deepest mysteries of the universe.

Every living creature has a ‘genome’, a set of life-making instructions encoded in DNA’s four-letter alphabet: A, T, G, and C. By reading these instructions from tens of thousands of humans, we’ve learned how DNA variations create individuality, and sometimes disease. Yet, the meaning of the instructions remains mostly mysterious.

Our research uses two revolutionary tools to interpret the meaning from DNA. First, we use iPS cells, personal stem cells that share an individual's genome and can be converted into any cell type in the human body. Second, we employ CRISPR-Cas9, molecular scissors programmed to edit DNA with precision. This talk will spotlight examples of how we use these tools to explore the human genome, manipulating the DNA instructions to improve health and stop disease.