Plant & Animal Genomes XV Conference

January 13-17, 2007
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

The Many Flavors Of Function; Understanding The Function Of Plant Genes In A Real-World Context

Ian T. Baldwin

  Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Dept of Molecular Ecology, Hans-Knoll Strasse 8, Beutenberg Campus, Jena 07745, Germany

The yeast genome was fully sequenced almost two decades ago and yet we still don’t understand the function of approximately a fifth of its genes. This observation doesn’t bode well for the likelihood of meeting NSF’s goal of understanding the function of all plant genes by 2010, given their five-fold larger genomes. This talk will describe a graduate training program established at the Dept of Molecular Ecology at the MPICOE to train scientists to identify genes that are required for the function of plants in complex environments. The talk will highlight some of the students’ recent research findings in how native plants cope with attack from herbivores and pathogens and how plant defense systems survive allopolyploid speciation events.