I’m in Friday Harbor Labs for the Northwest Developmental Biology Conference, with a lot of other UW people including other biograds. Kelsey Galimba gave a great talk today about her work on Thalictrum floral homeotic genes, and Jessica Guseman presented a yeast-and-auxin poster on Wednesday. Former biograd Cristy Walcher gave a talk about tomato lazy-2, which contrary to its name actively grows downward; she’s now visiting faculty at University of Puget Sound. I’m looking forward to Tracy Larson’s poster on adult neuron development in sparrows, too.
I also gave a talk yesterday, on my homeodomain transcription factor project. Almost concurrently, the paper was published online in Development on Wednesday. We found the gene, HOMEODOMAIN GLABROUS 2 (HDG2) though a microarray scheme involving Arabidopsis seedlings enriched in different epidermal cell types. The meristemoid cell type is really interesting because it renews itself through several asymmetric divisions, which is a stem-cell characteristic. HDG2 is very highly expressed in meristemoids, and it turns out that when you make all the other cells express it too you get meristemoids and their offspring, stomata, in all kinds of strange places, like the inside of the leaf.
And, of course, it’s lovely Friday Harbor. No snow here, and gorgeous little traffic-cones of whelks. (Nucella?)
