October 2014

Master students.

Two students form the M.Res. in  Molecular and Cellular Biosciences are joining the lab for their first project. Josh Sealy is joining the growing team studying the role of membrane potential in root regeneration, while Saori Hokari will look into persistence of regeneration competence.

Welcome both to the lab!

Visiting Researcher.

After succesfully completing her M.Res. in Molceular Plant and Microbial Sciences here at Imperial, Alexandra Hanna Ougolnikova is coming back to the Lab as Visiting Researcher to continue her work on the effects of electric fields on root development and regeneration.

Welcome back, Alexandra!


September 2014

Hiring a post-doc

  • A BBSRC-funded position for a Post-Doctoral Research Associate is now available in the Lab! The post is for two years, extendable to three, on a project titled "A complexity-science approach to understand organ regeneration in plants".
  • The project will require a combination of experimental and theoretical methods, and is in collaboratin with Prof. Henrik J. Jensen, at the Imperial College London Centre for Complexity Science

Interdisciplinary Plant Development

G. Sena and N. Kral presented a poster titled "Arabidopsis root regeneration in external electric field" at the EMBO conference "Interdisciplinary Plant Development", held at the Sainsbury lab in Cambridge on 21-24 September.

G.Sena chaired the conference's session titled "self-organising cell systems".

Physics Meets Biology 2014

G. Sena attended the conference "Physics Meets Biology" in Oxford, 3-5 September.


July 2014

Research grant.

A Research grant from BBSRC has been awarded to the Lab. The title of the three-year long project is "A Complexity Science Approach to Plant Tissue Regeneration". Prof. Henrik Jensen (Dep. Mathematics, Imperial College London), a member of the Center for Complexity Science at Imperial College London, will be co-investigator on the project.

A call will soon be advertised for a post-doc position with the Lab.

Co-organising a new conference.

Together with IoPDr. Robert Endres and Dr. Chiu Fan Lee, G. Sena is co-organising the conference "Physics of Emergent Behaviour - II"to be held at the Science Museum, London, UK, on 9-10 july 2015.

This is already the second time we organise a conference on this theme (see June 2013 in these News feed), as we believe it is a very stimulating and fun topic. Last year in Brighton it was a real treat, and we look forward to this one!


June 2014

Prof. Kenneth Birnbaum visited the Lab.

Ken Birnbaum (NYU) visited us on the 11th, and give a fantatstic talk to the Departmnet, titled: "The Trajectory of Regenerating Cells in the Pla nt Root".

We learned a lot of new cool stuff, and we Ken's excitement was a real stimulus! Thank you, Ken.

Invited talk.

G. Sena was invited to give a talk at the workshop "Smart Solutions from the Plant Kingdom (second edition)", Florence, Italy. Joint ly organised by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the University of Florence.

Title of the talk: "Self-repairing systems: from plant tissue regeneration to morphogenetic engineering?"


May 2014

Published mini-review

G. Sena Stem Cells and Regeneration in PlantsNephron Exp Nephrol, 2014, Vol. 126, 35-39, ISSN: 1660-2129

A small review, with some opinion on the topic.


April 2014

Prof. Elena Alvarez-Buylla visited the Lab.

Elena visited us and gave a fantatsic talk, titled: "Gene Regulatory Networks, Epigenetics Landscapes and Morphogenetic Models: Plant Systems and Cancer". We really enjoed the stimulating conversation. Thank y ou for coming, El ena!

Joint Master student.

Victor Akujobi is a student in the MSc in Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology, joining the lab to work on a project in collaboration with the group of Dr. Robert Endres (CISBIO, Departmnet of Life Sciences, Imperial College London). Victor will focus on morphometric analysis of Arabidopsis root tip regeneration.


March 2014

Forces in Biology.

G.Sena partecipated to the workshop titled "Forces in Biology", to be held in the Dep. of Physics at the UNiversity of Warwick, promoted by the network "Understandig The Physics of Lfe".

Visiting the Scheres lab

 

G.Sena visited the Plant Developmental Biology group of Prof. Ben Scheres, at Wageningen UR, where he presented the talk "self-organising tissues: root regeneration as a case study”.

 

B.Sc. Final Year Projects.

 

Reuben Margerison and Wei Sim, both Biology undergraduate students, are joining the Lab for their final year projects.

Reuben will work on molecular signals leading to root regenration. Wei (Ernest) will work on a project in collaboration with Dr. Colin Turnbull, exploring the potential of grafting techniques in studying root development. 

 


February 2014

 

Joint Master student.

Thibault Enderlé started a joined Master project between the Lab and the group of  Dr. Chiu Fan Lee (Bionengineering Dep., Imperial College London). The project will explore mechanical and structural properties of tissue regeneration in plants, and will count towards Thibault's MSc in Biomedical Engineering.

 


January 2014

 

Invited talk.

Talk at the Warwick Systems Biology Center, at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. 

"Imaging, measuring and modelling self-organisation: the interesting case of Arabidopsis root regeneration", by G. Sena