Structure and Growth of the Plant Cell Wall: Unsettled Issues and Controversies
Plant Biology Seminar Series

Abstract:
Although the major components of the growing cell wall have been characterized biochemically, their roles in the process of wall enlargement are still being researched, revised and debated. I will describe some of my lab's recent research in this field. Topics will include cell wall models (conceptual, experimental, computational), the continuing mystery of expansin functions, and approaches to build synthetic cell walls with properties resembling those of native walls.

About the Speaker:
Cosgrove has been interested in plant biology since his teenage years when he helped his mom in her garden and experimented on her begonias and African violets. He later earned a bachelor's degree in Botany at the University of Massachusetts and a doctoral degree in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. After postdoctoral stints at the University of Washington and the Nuclear Research Center in Juelich, Germany, he joined the faculty of the Biology Department at Penn State University, where he is currently Professor and Holder of the Eberly Chair of Biology. From 2009 to 2024 he directed the DOE-funded Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, an Energy Frontier Research Center. His research interests encompass plant growth and development, with a specific focus on the mechanisms of plant cell enlargement, cell wall structure and all things related to expansins, which were first isolated and characterized by Simon McQueen-Mason, Tatiana Scherban and others in his lab in the 1990's.

Contact

  Charlie Anderson
  cta3@psu.edu