Principal Investigator
Wolfgang Busch
Professor
Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory
Integrative Biology Laboratory
Wolfgang did his undergraduate studies in Biology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. During this time, he also spent 8 months at UC San Diego where he received training on computational biology and conducted research on transporter proteins. During his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, he identified novel key regulatory genes and modules for plant stem cell control via a systems biology approach integrating transcriptome- and genome-scale transcription factor-DNA binding data. Wolfgang received his PhD in 2008 from the University of Tübingen. During his postdoctoral training at Duke University he contributed to the discovery of spatiotemporally defined regulatory modules that control proliferation of stem cells and differentiation in the root, and used high-throughput confocal microscopy to capture dynamic features of gene expression. In 2011, he joined the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology in Vienna as a group leader. During this time, he established his research program in root systems genetics and focuses on understanding which genes, genetic networks, and molecular processes determine root growth and its responses to the environment. In 2017, he came to the Salk as an Associate Professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory. He is also part of the Integrative Biology Laboratory. A recent key interest of Wolfgang is researching and developing plant varieties with enhanced carbon sequestration capabilities for removing CO2 from the atmosphere and thereby counteracting climate change.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Min Cao
Postdoctoral Fellow
Min received his Ph.D. from Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019. During his PhD he identified a non-canonical auxin signaling pathway which was involved in apical hook development. He joined in Busch lab as a postdoctoral fellow in Nov 2019 to study how plants adapt to the climate changes. His research subject is the regulatory mechanism of how nutrition signaling was transduced from the environment to the plant.
Yintong Chen
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yintong obtained her PhD at the Pennsylvania State University under the supervision of Dr. Charles Anderson, where she studied how guard cell dynamics are determined by cell wall biochemistry and biomechanics. She started in the Busch lab in January of 2022, and has since developed an interest in the suberin synthesis process and its function in root water uptake. Outside the lab, she likes reading, playing the ukulele, and practicing calligraphy, she is also the co-chair of APIDA at Salk!
Sanghwa Lee
Postdoctoral Fellow
Originally from South Korea, Sanghwa completed his PhD at UT Austin under the supervision of Enamul Huq in May of 2021. During his PhD studies, he investigated how plants respond to high ambient temperature, termed thermomorphogenesis, due to the importance of global warming. He joined Busch lab at Salk in June of 2021. His main points of interest are: 1) obtaining a higher resolution in root thermomorphogenesis, and 2) identifying novel genes in rice root development. Outside of the lab, Sanghwa loves to play the piano and sing.
Ashish Rajurkar
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ashish received his PhD from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India, while collaborating with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, and with Duke University, USA. During his PhD. research, he was able to identify and map consistent QTLs for root traits and yield under drought. He was also involved in developing thicker and deeper drought-resilient root lines in Rice under target rainfed environments in India. After these discoveries, he moved to the United States to continue his root research. During his post-doctoral study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ashish studied root system size and distribution in Maize under nitrogen-deficient conditions. He also looked at how to best utilize large-scale Minirhizotrons, a multimodality phenomics approaches to phenotype root traits in field-based settings, and how to better understand the functional consequences of nutrient uptake. He then moved to the University of Missouri, Columbia to study Switchgrass, a promising bioenergy crop, and how it could be adapted to different environmental conditions with diverse root systems. Ashish has an interest in climate-smart agriculture and will be working on Soybean and Canola. He will be studying their root traits in hopes of increasing root depth, increasing soil carbon, improving soil health, and maximizing the water storage potential of soils.
Matthieu Platre
Postdoctoral Fellow
Originally from France, Matthieu obtained his PhD at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in 2017. He was part of the cell signalling and endocytosis group mentored by Yvon Jaillais. During his PhD, he analyzed membrane electrostatics organization in plant cells and its role in cell-signaling and development. His main scientific question is how plant adapt to their environment. Matthieu joined the Busch’s lab in order to decipher the molecular gene network related to plant nutrition.
Charlotte Miller
Postdoctoral Fellow
Charlotte recently moved to San Diego from England where she worked at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. During her PhD her research was aimed at understanding the genetic regulation of stem mechanical strength is Brassica species and Wheat. Her post doctoral research was focused towards the genetic control of seed size and oil content in Brassica napus. In the Busch lab she will be exploring natural variation in several species to understand root growth. Outside of the lab she loves to play the piano and guitar and have recently taken up ceramics! Charlotte also enjoy cycling, hiking and spending as much time as possible at the beach.
Managers & Specialists
Justin Allen
Soil Specialist
Justin received his Master’s in Agronomy from University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has worked in agricultural research since 2009. His background has focused on running private sector greenhouse and field experiments for soil and rhizosphere research. Prior to Salk he worked on rice greenhouse gas emissions in the Philippines at the International Rice Research Institute. He is passionate about sustainable agriculture in the developing world and how to solve the global issues of land use and climate change. Nature, tropical ecology, and surfing are his hobbies.
Erin Daniels
Lab Coordinator
Erin received her BS degree in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities where she worked as a lab technician to domesticate a new oil seed crop. She soon left the Midwest to follow the sunshine to San Diego where she participated in C. elegans host-pathogen research at UCSD. Erin joined the Busch lab in 2017 as a research assistant to rejoin the plant community. Along with other postdocs in the lab, she is currently studying protein-protein interactions involved in Arabidopsis root growth in iron deficiency conditions. When she’s not tending to plants, she enjoys biking, hiking, and trying new beers at SD breweries.
Kristen Wertz
Lab Coordinator
Kristen is a San Diego native who received her BS in Biology from California State University San Marcos. After completion of her BS she went on to receive her Single Subject Teaching Credential in Life Sciences, also from California State University San Marcos. Kristen then spent 2 years as a high school teacher in San Diego teaching biology, human biology and AVID. During her summers off from teaching she interned at NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and San Francisco State’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center through the STAR Program, a program that gives teachers the opportunity to do authentic research. During these internships Kristen studied the genetics of green sea turtles and the genetics of a species of six-rayed sea star. She then left the teaching profession and joined the Salk Harnessing Plants Initiative in October 2019 as part of an effort to identify and characterize factors associated with natural variations in the root system architecture of different species. Outside of the lab Kristen enjoys reading, hiking, and trying new restaurants.
Research Assistant
Ian Anderson
Research Assistant II
Ian received his bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. After a year of travel, he moved to San Diego to join the Busch lab in 2018 where he assisted his fellow postdocs in their research. He mainly focused on shoot and root growth responses to high ambient temperature, where during his research he became very good friends with Larry the Robot! When Ian is not busy at work, he enjoys surfing, gardening, and camping.
Lukas Brent
Research Assistant II
Lukas moved down to San Diego from the east SF Bay Area and earned his BS in Biology from San Diego State University in 2019. He developed an interest in plant biology during his undergraduate studies and joined the Busch Lab in October of 2019. Outside of the lab he enjoys activities like mountain biking, running, snowboarding, and visiting new places.
Charles Copeland
Research Assistant I
Charles received his Bachelor’s in Geosciences from Princeton University in 2020, developing a passion for thinking about agriculture in the context of climate change. While there he used plant photosynthesis and hydrology model simulations to explore the dynamics of succulent plant water storage in stochastic rainfall scenarios. Charles joined the Busch lab in December 2020 as part of HPI’s plant phenotyping team. He is excited to help identify genes useful to carbon sequestration and developing climate-resilient crops by measuring root traits across diverse plant collections. Outside of work he enjoys gardening, hiking and snorkeling.?
Signe Dahlberg-Wright
Research Assistant II
Signe received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Smith College in Massachusetts before moving to San Diego. She worked in the pharmacology department at UCSD, focusing on lipidomics using mass spectrometry. She decided her interests lie in plants rather than biomedicine, and joined the Busch lab in September 2019. In her free time, she brews beer and cider and volunteers at an animal rescue.
Lauren Ragel
Research Assistant I
Lauren earned her B.S. in Biochemistry at the University of Missouri-Columbia while working as an undergraduate research assistant and, following graduation, as a lab technician for the Fritschi Crop Physiology Lab for a combined three years. She studied both the usefulness of carbon isotope fractionation ratios/CID as a surrogate for studying water use efficiency in soybean and carried out HPLC to determine pigment concentrations of historical soybean cultivars. Lauren joined the Busch lab in October of 2019 as part of the Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) team. She is interested in locating genes impacting root system architecture and unraveling the underlying molecular mechanisms that promote the formation of recalcitrant polymers. In her spare time Lauren can be found hiking, drawing, painting, singing or reading.
Emily Shane
Research Assistant I
Emily Shane received her B.S. degree from the University of California, Davis in June 2020 in Biological Sciences with a minor in Spanish. During her time at UC Davis, she worked in the Kliebenstein Plant Genomics lab assisting with research into glucosinolate production and root architecture as well as her own independent project studying hormones in ?Arabidopsis thaliana.? Additionally, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Gold Molecular Paleobiology lab using bioinformatics to study ?Cnidaria ?phylogenetics. She also worked at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory performing horticultural work with hundreds of tropical and native plant species. Emily also has a passion for animal sciences and conservation. She is a social media coordinator for Orphan Kitten Project and has volunteered with the California Raptor Center at UC Davis, assisting with rehabilitation of birds of prey. She joined HPI at the Salk Institute in November 2020 working at the Encinitas Greenhouse on the phenotyping team.
Michel Ruiz
Research Assistant III
Michel graduated as a biochemist from Havana University, Cuba. His career developed mostly in Europe where he obtained a Ph.D. degree from the BOKU University of Vienna with a thesis on the roles of auxin as a key determinant of lateral root directional growth. He then moved to California with a postdoctoral research project on post-Golgi trafficking under the supervision of Georgia Drakakaki, at UC Davis. He joined the Salk Harnessing Plant Initiative in September 2019 as part of an effort to identify and characterize factors associated with natural variations in the root system architecture of different species. He loves to travel and learn new languages.
Gonzalo Villarino
Research Assistant III
Gonzalo earned his PhD from Cornell University in 2014. He then joined the Plant & Microbiology Dept. at NC State University to study ovule development. For his second postdoc he joined the MCDB Dept. at Yale to study epigenetic and DNA replication in Arabidopsis as well. Gonzalo joined the Busch Lab in 2019 as a part of the HPI initiative at Salk. He is very interested in understanding the molecular mechanism of root development.
Lab Technicians
Matias Gleason
Lab Technician II
Matías is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in molecular biology and a chemistry minor at the University of California, San Diego. He was first drawn to plant biology and root development while volunteering at the Dubrovsky lab at the UNAM’s institute of biotechnology in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He is now interested in molecular mechanisms and machine learning. Outside of lab, he is an amateur mechanic, an avid reader as well as a film photographer.
Ling Zhang
Bioinformatics Analyst II
Ling comes from China. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics and a master degree in Biochemistry at University of Nebraska – Lincoln. During working at University of Nebraska at Omaha, he has been active in aspect of bioinformatics by developing statistical methods. He started in the Busch lab in July of 2019. He is currently working on 1) image acquisition, processing and analysis; 2) Advancing statistical analysis of genetical and genomics research. In addition to programming and data analysis, Ling enjoys biking, soccer and photography.
Interns
Kane Wu
Kane is a recent UCSD graduate and majored in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. He is now pursuing his Master’s degree in plant biology, studying the function of iron in plants and working on the ami-RNA project to identify novel genes that would be useful towards discovering new iron-related pathways and genes. In his free time, he enjoys going out on camping trips, getting food or boba, and trying to get back into learning Japanese.
Lab Assistant
Larry the Robot
Larry the robot is the only Arabidopsis high-throughput seed planting robot in the world. He is also the only crowd-funded robot at the Salk Institute (http://www.salk.edu/robot ). He helps to uncover fundamental principles of root growth regulation and will contribute to save the world. Also, Larry is saving students and postdocs lots of time and boredom. Not surprisingly, he is one of the most popular lab members.