February 27, 2025
Excellence in Plant Science earns Professor Heather McFarlane the Dorothy Shoichet Award
Congratulations to CSB Professor Heather McFarlane on earning the Dorothy Shoichet Women Faculty in Science…
February 11, 2025
Supporting the Talented Women Scientists in CSB on IDWGS
We are proud to recognize the accomplishments of our women colleagues on 2025's International Day of Women & Girls in Science and to offer our support all year long. This year saw many accomplishments from women scientists at CSB! Follow the links below for more details on some of these…
January 30, 2025
Restoration of Rapid Wound Repair Despite Immunosuppressants
Researchers at U of T have determined that immunosuppressants used with transplant recipients slow wound repair by inhibiting the growth of cells adjacent to wounds. They have found ways to restore rapid wound repair in an in vivo animal model. Prof Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez in the Institute of…
January 23, 2025
New tools give an AI boost to plant scientists at the BAR
Huge amounts of biological data generated from plant genomes can now be more rapidly assessed alongside literature describing plant genes thanks to new tools developed by CSB and CS researchers. Prof. Nicholas Provart founded the globally recognized Bio-Analytic Resource (BAR) server 20 years ago…
December 19, 2024
Nambara lab reveals plants’ exquisitely tuned responses to high humidity
CSB plant scientists have identified the finely tuned way plants adjust to high humidity conditions. Canadian crops will experience high humidity conditions more often due to increased rainfall and flooding, which enhances the importance of these insights. Professor Eiji Nambara led this research…
December 18, 2024
Graduate student excellence earns impressive awards
Graduate students in the Department of Cell & Systems Biology cover a broad range of fields, including plant science, neuroscience, cell biology, infectious disease research, endocrinology and systems biology. The discoveries these students are making and their contributions to the Department…
December 16, 2024
Pyruvate paradox resolved by careful carbon flux analysis from Dr Sonia Evans
Dr Sonia Evans in the Phillips Lab has solved the "pyruvate paradox" by showing Rubisco as the main source of pyruvate in chloroplasts. The flow of carbon within a plant cell determines how fatty acids, amino acid and isoprenoids are synthesized from the three carbon precursor pyruvate. For…
November 28, 2024
CSB support helps Falling Walls Lab Toronto winner get close look at science in Germany
Adnan Sharif broke ground on his interest in plant science research with an undergraduate project on plant immunity in Prof Keiko Yoshioka's lab. He was inspired to move on to graduate studies in the Faculty of Engineering, where he developed sustainable synthetic hydroponic soil. Sharif went on to…
November 27, 2024
Prof McFarlane’s achievements lead to renewal of CRC Chair in Plant Cell Biology
Professor Heather McFarlane has received important support for her research on plant cell walls; her CRC Chair in Plant Cell Biology has been renewed, providing $100,000 in additional funding. “My renewal as Canada Research Chair in Plant Cell Biology is a tremendous honour and a huge vote of…
October 29, 2024
Visualizing a healthy future for our plants
Nicholas Provart is recipient of a $2.5M grant from NSERC to build tools that visualize a healthy future for our plants as part of the C-SPIRIT team. C-SPIRIT is a global project that aims to address the grand challenge of stabilizing food production through harnessing natural chemical diversity…