Our DNA - Spring 2022

Page 4

FACULT Y SPOTLIGHT

Feeding the

World

Through Plant Fitness and Defense

By Heejin Yoo

In January, the School of Biological Sciences added two new plant biologists to its stable of tenure-track faculty. A couple, Heejin Yoo and Chan Yul Yoo, come to SBS via Oklahoma State University where they were in faculty positions. At the University of Utah, each has their own separate research lab, and their work differs from each other in both scope and focus. In this issue of OUR DNA, we have invited Heejin to share with us her research story. You can read more about her work at her lab website: hyoo-pbio.com/

I

grew up in a house filled with various plant species because my mother loves gardening. Today, my parents have a huge garden on Yeonsan mountain about forty-five minutes away from our home in Daejeon, South Korea. There they grow lots of flowers, vegetables, trees, etc. My mother’s loving care for plants and my father’s research in biology influenced me a lot, and inspired me to major in plant biology in college. While an undergraduate, the study of genetically modified organisms (GMO) was a hot topic, and I became fascinated with plant molecular biology. I dreamt about studying how plants grow in continuously changing environments and how to make healthy plants with genetic engineering. 2

In graduate school at Purdue University, my interest in plants became more serious when I learned that plants seem to have very distinct regulatory mechanisms to attract friends as well as to defend against foes. As stationary organisms, plants must have various strategies to handle friends and foes very differently than that of animals which are mobile and have specialized immune cells to defend against pathogens. Plants cannot run away from their enemies or approach their friends. So how do plants then defend themselves from harm while continuing to flourish?

Volatiles to attract and repel One of plants’ key approaches to this is through volatiles, the metabolites they release into the air. The quantities released are not trivial; almost


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