Senior Staff Scientist Carnegie Institution for Science
To understand, accurately predict, and engineer plants, we must cross at least three knowledge gaps: 1) biochemical functions of proteins with no sequence homology to characterized proteins; 2) specification, maintenance, and function of various plant cells; and 3) integration of biological processes at the whole organism level. Major advances in imaging, mass spectrometry, sequencing, robotics and artificial intelligence are abound and should be leveraged to overcome these challenges. I will present and discuss our efforts to address these challenges. Specifically I will talk about how we are: 1) systematically characterizing functions of unknown genes, 2) creating a community-wide resource and infrastructure called the Plant Cell Atlas, and 3) modeling metabolic traits between source and sink tissues and cells.
