Dr. Wenjuan "Anita" Fang has joined the Baskin lab as a postdoctoral research fellow. Dr. Fang received her Ph.D. in turfgrass science from Beijing Forestry University in 2008 and since then has been working as a postdoc in the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Genetics and Development Biology in Beijing. She will be working on the B. distachyon project in the Baskin lab.
A sophomore majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mike Veling has provided key support in the Hazen laboratory since his freshman year. He is constructing a multifunctional B. distachyon transcription factor ORFeome. In addition to developing this valuable reagent, he is conducting a phylogenetic analysis of specific protein families believed to play a role in the regulation of cell wall biosynthesis.
Tobias Baskin gave the keynote address at Deuxième Journée Scientifique du Grand Réseau de Recherche Végégetal, Agronomie et Tranformation des Agro-ressources. Oct 15th 2010, Rouen, France. His talk was titled "Plant cell walls: From synthesis to degradation" and overviewed some of the challenges and opportunites in biofuel research, emphasizing B. distachyon.
