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by Sue Kropp
• B.S.,
Indiana University (biology)
• Ph.D., Stanford University (plant physiology)
• Postdoctoral studies at U.C. Berkeley (plant development)
SEPTEMBER 16, 2002--Although the word "clever" doesn't spring immediately to mind as a description for plants, Assistant Professor Marta Laskowski stands firm in her choice of words.
"Everybody eats plants--people and all sorts of other animals," says Laskowski, the newest member of Oberlin's Biology Department. "It stands to reason that plants should have disappeared long ago. Yet these organisms have figured out how, without running away, to deal with the world around them and adapt to their environment."
Laskowski works in genomics, a branch of biology that examines all the genes of an organism simultaneously, rather than one gene at a time. Her research focuses on the arabidopsis plant, which scientists sequenced as a model plant genome in two years ago.
"Mapping the genetic structure of the arabidopsis plant revealed what genes are within this plant," Laskowski says. "Knowing this allows us take our research a step further to investigate how each specific gene functions within the plant. This might ultimately have agricultural implications; for example, it might allow people to grow crops on marginal soils or a fixed amount of land."
A Q&A with Marta Laskowski:
Please send comments, questions, and suggestions about Oberlin Online news and feature articles to online.news@oberlin.edu.
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