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 confidence that my lab members and I are conducting original and innovative research.”
McFarlane’s lab members include Natalie Hoffman and Eduardo Ramirez-Rodriguez, who received awards from the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists for their research presentations.
McFarlane’s insightful research with Hoffman “Xyloglucan sidechains enable polysaccharide secretion to the plant cell wall” was featured on the cover of Developmental Cell.
“Support from the CRC program will help my lab advance our research to uncover the fundamental mechanisms of plant cell wall signaling and cell wall synthesis,” McFarlane explains.
“This research is helping us to understand why plants often limit their growth when we try to engineer cell walls to improve important bioproducts, such as green materials and renewable biofuels.”
Congratulations, Professor McFarlane!