This week I got to hear a little bit about what the rest of Howard Hughes is up to this summer. Lots of letters and numbers and abbreviations, and a couple of model organisms. Most of my peers’ talks made me want to brush up on my molecular bio and genetics. It was interesting to see just how much biological research varies (and at only one (fantastic) university)!
Becky is also working with plants, although the greener type. She drew a diagram of the life cycle of a plant and highlighted how important germination is. Simple right? Eh. When you really think about it, germinating at the wrong time/conditions could kill the plant. Germination, as Becky said, helps determines fitness. She is working with Arabidopsis; which google says looks like this:
Flowering Locus C (FLC) is responsible for repressing flowering (and FLC is repressed by cold like winter). Her main project this summer features seeds with genetically different levels of FLC which she will expose to harsh conditions to see if germination rates are affected. The harsh condition for her experiment created by polyethylene glycol (PEG) which blocks seeds access to water.
It looks really interesting and it seems like Becky will have lots to do these last few weeks! As for me, I’ll be visiting more plants next week (the wastewater kind). Woo!
