In this episode of CDR Horizons Charles and Harsh welcome Dr. Wolfgang Busch of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies to share insights into the exciting breakthrough work of the Harnessing Plants Initiative. HPI’s multi-disciplinary team is investigating new ways to leverage advancements in modern plant breeding and genetic sciences to increase and make more durable the carbon drawdown potential of major global crops.
DR. WOLFGANG BUSCH - HTTPS://WWW.SALK.EDU/SCIENTIST/WOLFGA… Wolfgang Busch is the co-director of the Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California. Dr. Busch 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.
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