Erin Sparks

We are excited to announce the Plant Biomechanics Webinar Series 2025!
🗓 Webinar #1: Thursday, 25 September 2025
🕑 Time: 14.00 – 15.40 (UTC+7)
🎙 Speakers:
Yamamoto M. Matsuo-Ueda R. Noviandi G.I. Hutabarat
📝 Registration: ugm.id/PBMweb1

We learned a lot about plant cell wall mechanics by stretching the Arabidopsis epidermis. Now published in
‪@natcomms.nature.com‬ Fibrous network nature of plant cell walls enables tunable mechanics for development
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Image of the program cover for the family reunion event.

Excited for today’s #STLPlantFam25 Plant Science Family Reunion hosted by @39northstl.bsky.social. The joy of connecting with the STL plant fam is indescribable.

It was such an honor to coordinate this plenary! So much amazing science happening in Plant Biomechanics. Thanks to @radinbio.bsky.social, @geitmannlab.bsky.social, Naomi Nakayama, and Frank Telewski for sharing their work! #PlantBio2025

A conference room with individuals sitting at tables in chairs facing a speaker on a stage. Behind the stage are green curtains and large, white letters that say 'ASPB.' On either side of the stage are large screens with the title of the talk, "Evolution of Organella Mechanosensing" projected onto them.

A speaker stands in front of an audience. Behind him are green currents, and big block white letters that say 'ASPB.'

PCA Member Ivan Radin presented this morning at the 2025 ASPB Conference with his talk on "Evolution of Organellar Mechanosensing."

#PlantBio2025 @radinbio.bsky.social

A person walks on a stage while talking and gesturing with their hands. To the right, there is a large speaker on a tripod. To the left in the background, there are large letters "SPB."

ASPB Fellow Anja Geitmann presents "From microstructural features to macroscopic traits" exploring her lab's work to understand the hierarchical architectural concepts underpinning metabolic processes. @geitmannlab.bsky.social #plantscience #PlantBio2025

Loved Naomi Nakayama’s talk-truly original research! #PlantBio2025

#PlantBio2025

I am excited for my awesome grad student, Olivia @ohazel.bsky.social from @science.ubc.ca @ubcbotany.bsky.social presenting today at ASPB meeting in the poster session (unnumbered section).

Here is Olivia's 1st author preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We @ohazel.bsky.social @jessicaa-orr.bsky.social arrived in Wisconsin to attend the ASPB meeting. We are off to a great start here and had a great time hanging out with Erin @erinsparks.bsky.social today.

Thanks Erin for making the time.

I'm off to ASPB #PlantBio2025 tomorrow, with a poster and talk on using X-ray imaging in Plant Biology. New soybean imaging to share, like this fly-through animation of the meristematic region from an XRM scan. @danforthcenter.bsky.social @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social

Congratulations @kcox-bioguy.bsky.social for your ASPB award. Well deserved! #PlantBio2025

Targeted seed EMS mutagenesis reveals a basic helix–loop–helix transcription factor underlying male sterility in sorghum Abstract. Forward genetic screens of mutant populations are fundamental for functional genomics studies. However, isolating independent mutant alleles to m

The lab used our mutagen of choice, Ethyl methanesulfonate, and sequencing of somatic sectors to do some forward genetics in sorghum. Additional alleles in one generation to find and validate the gene! Something old, something new...

@genetics-gsa.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

The genetic architecture of cell type–specific cis regulation in maize Gene expression and complex phenotypes are determined by the activity of cis-regulatory elements. However, an understanding of how extant genetic variants affect cis regulation remains limited. Here, ...

New data from the Bob Schmitz lab (Marand 2025) on cell type-specific cis-regulation in maize! This study, in @science.org, reveals how DNA changes impact expression and maize traits. Explore the 176 new tracks on the browser under Epigenetics and DNA binding.

➡️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨It's here!🚨
The Underground Journal Launched Today!
@lindzeamays.bsky.social is our first featured artist! Sign up to learn more about Lindsay's work as a science illustrator.

We are already accepting submissions for the next issue! So excited to see what you all create!
#sciart #scicomm

Make your own maize mutants! Raj Khangura, Norman Best and I contributed maize pollen and seed EMS mutagenesis protocols for the new maize handbook! Updated practices 1/n cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl...
cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl...
cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/earl...

Reason number 4,517 (yes I'm counting) why @maizegdb.bsky.social is so awesome and we're so lucky as a community to have these folks. Also a great example of maize community sharing. UNPUBLISHED data already up on the community database showing conservation scores across the maize genome.

Congrats to all!!!

Thrilled that @10xgenomics.bsky.social is sponsoring the 6th Interdisciplinary #Plant Group Root (IPG) #Biology Symposium at Mizzou!

May 20-23, 2025

IPG is a community of researchers at at MU who are pursuing novel ideas in the field of plant biology!

link below!
ipg.missouri.edu/symposium/in...

📣 #PlantBio2025 Plenary: Biomechanics.🌱 Learn more and register now! buff.ly/eAQJjVe

👉Advanced rates end June 10! Hurry and register soon for the best savings on the event you don’t want to miss. buff.ly/dtqtnUX

#PlantScience

(1/15) We are happy to share the recent preprint from the lab, in a collaboration with Erin Sparks @erinsparks.bsky.social and Norman Best.

This story is focused on cell division and auxin in presence of one of the toxic metals, lead (Pb).

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

👀

🌱🦠👩🏾‍🔬 Check out Shanice and her awesome work!

Firmly grounded: Root system stiffness and plant mechanics | Plantae Field-based technologies are essential for understanding plant mechanical behavior in field-relevant contexts. This behavior can be elastic, with temporary deformation measured as stiffness…

Plant Science Research Weekly -- Firmly grounded: root system stiffness and plant mechanics (Journal of Experimental Botany) (Summary by Irene I. Ikiriko) buff.ly/HBp5OK5

#PlantaePSRW

(1/17) We are excited to share the Ashraf and Gallagher labs collaboration on cell cycle regulation during environmental stress recovery in Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, and ryegrass.

Conserved effectors underpin the virulence of liverwort-isolated Pseudomonas in divergent plants Robinson et al. identify pathogenic Pseudomonas viridiflava in wild Marchantia polymorpha liverworts and interrogate the mechanisms enabling virulence in non-flowering and flowering plants. Their resu...

Latest paper from @philcarella.bsky.social lab! Pseudomonas viridiflava as a naturally occurring pathogens of Marchantia.

▶️ T3SS matters
▶️ conserved effectors for infection in angio and Marchantia

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Yes! We’re working on a scaled down version now. The idea that we could use it on younger and smaller plants.

Picture of Cologne at night.

The 2025 maize genetics meeting is over. Looking forward to having the 2026 maize meeting from Feb 26 to March 1 in Cologne (Köln), Germany 🇩🇪. Please already mark your calendars. #MGM2025 > #MGM2026.

Excited that this paper from my group is now out! 🥳 congrats to all the authors.

We’re proud to announce a new podcast, Leaf it to Us, hosted by Nora Spurling and Aly Baumgartner!

As a special preview, the pilot episode and its accompanying bonus episode are both now out on the Common Descent podcast feed! Take a listen and let us know what you think!