PLANT MOLECULAR GENETICS AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
The Hepworth Lab
RESEARCH
The Hepworth lab at Carleton University studies the genetic control of plant architecture. Typically there are 3-4 graduate students and 2-3 undergraduates at work.
Plants arose as multicellular organisms independently from animals and so the strategies that shape them are unique compared to the animal world. Our ability to breed high-performance crops with ideal architecture is an important key in meeting the world's food and energy needs in a changing climate.
RESEARCH SNAPSHOTS
A plant is built from the ground up by repeating units formed by the shoot apical meristem. Our emphasis is on understanding how organ boundary genes govern plant architecture including flowering, the inflorescence, fruit patterning, and abscission. We are using a model plant species for our work, Arabidopsis thaliana, because its genome is completely sequenced and there are many resources available to study how this plant develops at the molecular level.