G Venugopala Reddy, an assistant professor of plant cell biology at the University of California, Riverside, has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation in the US to investigate how plant stem-cells maintain their identity and how they eventually get specialised into different cell types.

The research, which will focus only on plants, has potential to lead to better insights into how stem cells communicate with each other both before and after they are transformed into specialised cells that lead to the development of different plant organs, according to Reddy, principal investigator of the four-year grant.

He plans to use two powerful methods in his research: One of which helped him identify which genes are active in stem cells; and live imaging, which will allow him to monitor, in real time, how individual proteins interact in living plant cells.

‘This research may lead to better insights into stem-cell regulation,’ Dr Reddy said. ‘This can come about only by understanding how stem cells are made and maintained, and by deciphering which genes are involved and how they function.’