CSB Professor Heather McFarlane has earned the prestigious New Investigator Award from the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences (CSMB).
The CSMB grants this award to rising stars in cell and molecular biology and this award recognizes McFarlane’s outstanding research on plant cell wall synthesis. Plant cell walls provide structure and flexibility to plants that allow them to form thin, flexible structures like corn stalks or trees.
Stress on plant cell walls, including stress from climate change, can reduce yields in important products like lumber, cotton and fuel crops. Previous attempts to modify plant cell walls for improved materials or biofuels have resulted in substantially reduced crop yields, showing that we don’t fully understand how this economically important process occurs.
The goal of McFarlane’s award-winning research is therefore to study how plants sense and respond to cell wall changes to permit cell wall engineering that advances sustainability and yields innovative products. McFarlane and her trainees have already revealed important aspects of cell wall synthesis.
They have identified dozens of new molecular components of cell wall signaling and provided mechanistic insights into why some cell wall modifications are tolerated by plants while other changes can cause dramatic growth and developmental phenotypes. We look forward to further revolutionary work from this team.
McFarlane’s excellence is reflected by her post as CRC Chair in Plant Cell Biology, by her Ontario Early Researcher Award and by her earning the Dorothy Shoichet Women Faculty in Science Award of Excellence.
Congratulations, Heather!