Department of Plant Biology

About Us

The Department of Plant Biology is located on the Stanford Campus. Scientists here study the most basic problems of how plants function and grow. Our scientists range in expertise from high school interns and undergraduates through graduate students to postdoctoral fellows and full time staff members. Our work is funded through a combination of Carnegie endowment and research grants from federal and private sources.

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Why is plant biology important?

Life on earth is not possible without plants. Plants are the primary conduit for the flow of energy from the sun into living organisms and constitute more than 90% of the Earth's biomass. Plants are the source of our food, provide us shelter, shape our environment and supply us with medications. Understanding the basic mechanisms of plant life provides a foundation for solving problems faced by agriculture, the environment, and medicine and for developing practices that enable global sustainability.

Some bacterial CRISPRs can snip RNA, too

March 2, 2016 11:39 AM

Stanford, CA— You’ve probably seen news stories about the highly lauded, much-discussed genome editing system CRISPR/Cas9. But did you know the system was actually derived from bacteria, which use it to fight off foreign invaders such as viruses? It allows many bacteria to snip and store segments of DNA from an invading virus, which they can then use to “remember” and destroy DNA from similar invaders if they are encountered again. Recent work...

How plants protect photosynthesis from oxygen

February 26, 2016 12:29 PM

Stanford, CA— During the daytime, plants convert the Sun’s energy into sugars using photosynthesis, a complex, multi-stage biochemical process. New work from a team including Carnegie’s Mark Heinnickel, Wenqiang Yang, and Arthur Grossman identified a protein needed for assembling the photosynthetic apparatus that may help us understand the history of photosynthesis back in the early days of life on Earth, a time when oxygen was not abundant in...

Plant scientists: GM technology a safe tool to help meet food supply demands

February 18, 2016 01:46 PM

Washington, DC— More than 1,000 scientists from nonprofit, corporate, academic, and private institutions say public doubts about genetically modified food crops are hindering the next Green Revolution. In a letter published in the journal Science, six researchers from three institutions explain their recent petition in support of science-based criteria in guiding the safe and effective employment of genetic modification (GM) technology. The...

Carnegie’s Jones recognized for early career contributions to plant science

December 17, 2015 02:51 PM

Stanford, CA—Carnegie’s Alexander Jones will receive the Tansley Medal for Excellence in Plant Science. The honor includes publishing a short review, an editorial written about his work in the journal New Phytologist, and a small bursary. The journal’s Tansley Medal, named after early 20th century botanist Sir Arthur Tansley, is awarded each year in recognition of “outstanding contribution to research in plant science by an individual in the...

2015 Carnegie DPB summer intern program report

November 17, 2015 06:37 PM

This year’s Department of Plant Biology Summer Internship Program was held June 12th to August 14th. Over 30 domestic and international students participated in this program and conducted experiments in 10 labs at Carnegie DPB. We had a very diverse group of interns this year, with over half of them women, and many from different minority groups. Besides doing research, interns also went to a seminar series given by Faculty members from...