News

October 2024

Our work on oomycetes electrotaxis and the use of electric fields to protect plant roots has been brilliantly described in the magazine IEEE Spectrum by author Sally Adee 

Sophie Cooke is joining the lab as a Master's student (MPMS course), working on a project focused on shoot regeneration from callus stimulated by electric currents. Welcome on board!

GS visited the group of Ari Pekka Mähönen at the Viikki Plant Science Centre of the University of Helsinki (Finland), where he gave a talk titled "Feel the Force: a modern view of root electrotropism". Thank you again for the invitation, it has been a very inspiring visit!

September 2024

The paper of Todd Fallesen, a previous post-doc in the lab, is finally out in Quantitative Plant Biology: "Intermittent cell division dynamics in regenerating Arabidopsis roots reveal complex long-range interactions". A great work using light-sheet microscopy to analyse cell division dynamics in regenerating roots. It is also a beautiful collaboration with Henrik Jensen, Sirsh Amertifio and Gunnar Pruessner. Congrats to all, well deserved! 

GS gave a short talk titled "Bioelectric patterns in plant tissue regeneration" at the Development reprogrammed / Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium, in Cambridge, UK.

GS gave a short talk titled "Controlling plant root electrotropism to optimise root growth in microgravity" at the  European Low Gravity Research Association (ELGRA) 2024 Symposium / Workshop on Plant Science for Space Exploration and Earth Applications,  in Liverpool, UK. 

August 2024

Eleonora Moratto's paper titled "Reduction of Phytophthora palmivora plant root infection in weak electric fields" has been published in Scientific Reports. A great piece of work with our Mastert students Zhenxi Tang and Qiyi Feng and our collaborator Tolga Bozkurt.

GS and Eleonora Moratto has filed a patent titled "Electric device for root protection and control"

April 2024

GS gave a talk titled "A quantitative analysis of plant root electrotropism, or the response of roots in external ionic currents", BSDB/Genetics Society Joint Spring Meeting, Un. Of Warwick, UK

March 2024

Stefania Zattoni is back from the University of Verona, Italy, for a short period as visiting PhD student. Callus regeneration and much more! 

Three undergraduate students are joining the lab for their final year project: Sena Gurol, Sophie Mason and Caroline Xu. Enjoy!

Welcome back to Zhengxi Tang who, after completing her MRes in our lab, is now back for a few months as a Research Technician. Very excited to have her with us again, welcome back Tang!

February 2024

Congratulations to Eleonora Moratto, successfully defending her PhD! Her second paper is also in preparation. It has been a deep pleasure and honour to have her in our lab, and we will certainly miss her greatly... Good luck Eleonora!

It is really sad to see Maddalena Salvalaio leaving the lab after 5 years of incredibly successful collaboration! From 2019 to 2024 she published two great papers, managed the lab and supervised numerous undergraduate and master students. A fantastic Research Technician/Assistant who we will miss forever... we wish the best possible luck to Maddalena, who is now back to her beloved Italy doing some more amazing science!