Dr. Ya MIn

Seminar Details

Host: Dr. Mingyuan Zhu

Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm

Location: BICH Rm 108

Seminar Abstract

All flowers start as a dome of stem cells, the floral meristem (FM). Although floral morphological diversity is seemingly infinite, the developmental trajectory of every organ in a flower is determined at initiation: a floral organ has a particular final form because it was produced by the FM at a certain developmental time point and at a certain position. The FM determines the identity, number, position, and timing of initiation of all the organs in a flower, a blueprint that is often referred to as the Bauplan. Proper establishment of the Bauplan is essential for the reproductive success of a plant and variations in the Bauplan lay the foundation for floral morphological diversity. My scientific passion is to understand the molecular developmental mechanisms of FM regulation that underline Bauplan evolution and variation. Specifically, this lecture will be focusing on the genetic and molecular framework that generates variation in two major aspects of the Bauplan: 1) timing variation in FM termination, and 2) symmetry breaking in the FM.