Edgar Spalding

LAB WEBSITE:

https://botany.wisc.edu/staff/spalding-edgar-p/

FOCUS GROUPS:

Plant Biology; Developmental Biology & Regenerative Medicine

RESEARCH DESCRIPTION:

I have been conducting research on the physiology, molecular biology, and genetics of seedling development for many years, primarily in the model plant Arabidopsis but increasingly in corn and other crop plants. Transport of the hormone auxin by ATP-binding cassette transporters, and Ca²⁺ ion transport by amino acid-gated ion channels are long-standing topics of research in my group. The function of blue light receptors is another area of specialty. Connecting all these projects is our use of custom-developed computer vision techniques to study mutant phenotypes in seedlings as they develop. This computational approach to phenotype quantification has grown to be a major focus of the lab, which contains engineers and computer scientists as well as biologists. We are applying these image-analysis approaches in large-scale studies of population genetics to map quantitative trait loci, and perform genome-wide association studies.

ALSO A TRAINER IN THE FOLLOWING PROGRAMS: Botany, Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics

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