Maureen Hanson and Research Associate Vishal Chaudhari attended the 10th Carbon-Concentrating Mechanism meeting at Princeton University July 6-8, 2022. Hanson gave a talk about “Preparing plants for introduction of a CCM” that described carbonic anhydrase and Rubisco mutants.
Stephane Bentolila, Associate Research Professor, and graduate student Jose Lombana attended the 23rd Penn State Symposium in Plant Biology: RNA Biology meeting from May 18 – 20, 2022. Bentolila (photo above) presented on “The involvement of the RanBP2 zinc finger domain in plant organelle RNA processing” as part of the RNA and Cell Biology section of the meeting.
An April 2022 publication in Science Advances, describes some recent work in the lab to improve photosynthesis. The paper describes the evolution of Rubisco, an important yet inefficient carbon-fixing enzyme, using computational methods. These computational methods led to the prediction of ancestral Rubisco variants that were tested in E. coli under different CO2 conditions. Enzymes with higher catalytic efficiency were identified. Overall, the results highlight ways to help plants adapt to anthropogenic climate change. Check out a Cornell CALS news article for a longer description of the work.
Members of the Hanson Lab have co-authored a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencespublication on work towards improving photosynthesis. Kevin Hines (Ph.D. ’19), a recent Hanson Lab alum, and Vishal Chaudhari, postdoctoral associate in Hanson’s lab, were co-first authors. Kristen Edgeworth, a former NSF REU student, and Thomas Owens, Section of Plant Biology, joined Hines and Chaudhari, and Hanson in the work.
The paper outlines progress towards the goal of concentrating carbon dioxide (CO2) in the chloroplast of plants. A feat that would improve photosynthesis by enhancing the efficiency of carbon fixation. The removal of carbonic anhydrase is an important step in the overall process. Carbonic anhydrase is naturally occurring in plants and works to balance levels of CO2 and bicarbonate.
The Cornell Chronicle has published an article that describes this work in more detail.
Andrew Gipson’s Cornell career started with an NSF REU BTI/Cornell internship in the Hanson lab, where he won the “Colonel’s Cup” for best research presentation. After graduating from Kenyon College and working at U. Minnesota as a technician, Andrew returned to Cornell and completed his Ph.D. on plant organelle organelle editing, co-advised by Stephane Bentolila and Maureen Hanson. Andrew has become an accomplished teacher, holding several head TA positions. Andrew presented his work at a minisymposium at the 2020 online ASPB meeting. He is co-author of a paper on an RNA splicing factor. With the publication of a review article, Andrew is officially an expert in zinc finger proteins in plants!
Dr. Maureen Hanson has been elected to two important organizations in April 2021.
On April 22, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced their 2021 election results. A total of 252 new members were elected. Hanson joins other newly elected members Oprah Winfrey (Harpo, Inc.; Oprah Winfrey Network), Sanjay K. Gupta (CNN; Emory University School of Medicine), and H. Holden Thorp (American Association for the Advancement of Science). The Cornell Chronicle has featured Hanson’s election in a recent article.
Shortly after, on April 26, the National Academy of Sciences released their list of 120 newly elected members. Hanson joins a renowned group of national and international scientists. Members are elected based on “their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Election to the NAS is one of the highest honors in the scientific field. The Cornell Chronicle has a second article featuring two faculty from Cornell who were elected this year.
This manuscript takes a look at 4,790 circulating plasma proteins from 20 ME/CFS women compared to 20 healthy women, over an unprecedented range, for ME/CFS, of 9 orders of magnitude.
Pathway analysis uncovered disrupted cell-to-cell communication, specifically in the ephrin-Eph signaling pathway. This pathway is crucial for many aspects of our body’s homeostasis, including development, physiology, and disease regulation.
Additionally, the paper outlines promising results for the development of a diagnostic test using protein ratios.
First author, Arnaud Germain, PhD, outlines these findings in a video abstract below.
Transcripts for the video are available: – English – German
Chinese, French, and Spanish subtitles for the video abstract are available. See video settings to select an option.
Hanson Lab Postdoctoral Research Associate, Myat Lin, is first author on a Nature Plantspublication that outlines new advances on the use of Escherichia coli for improving photosynthesis. The publication highlights key work in providing a microbial platform for the continued enhancement of Rubisco enzyme kinetics. Vishal Chaudhari and Maureen Hanson from our lab and William Stone ’18 contributed to this work.
The Cornell Chronicle has published an article on this work. The Nature Plants publication has limited access, but the Cornell Chronicle article is freely available.
Collaboration between the Hanson Lab and researchers at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, produced a February 2020 publication in Plant Physiology. The publication outlines progress towards engineering a cyanobacteria CO2 concentrating mechanism in plants, an achievement that has the potential to increase crop production by improving photosynthesis. Particularly, the paper demonstrates the ability to form a hybrid Rubisco enzyme composed of a plant (tobacco) small subunit and a cyanobacteria (Synechococcus elongatus) large subunit. Check out the publication to take a closer look into this fascinating research.
From an REU internship to a Ph.D., Kevin Hines has made a notable impact on the Hanson Lab. His journey in the Hanson Lab started in 2012 as an NSF REU summer intern. This internship involved developing genetic tools for the production of carboxysomes in tobacco chloroplasts. His work proved fruitful contributing to a publication in Plant Journal.
After his internship, Hines decided to continue his research efforts at Cornell and joined the Hanson Lab as a graduate student. Building off of his previous work, Hines developed an aptitude for microscopy where he collaborated in the publication of articles on stromules, RNA editing, and carboxysomes (under review). His skilled application of scientific techniques enabled him to explore a thesis regarding carbonic anhydrase in plant chloroplasts. Cornell’s OVPR highlighted this work in an article.
His time in the lab included participating in the ASPB meeting and the Photosynthesis from Light to Life conference in 2018. In that same year, he also presented at the International Symposium on Photosynthesis and Chloroplast in Kurashiki, Japan. All of this work came together on November 20, 2019 when he successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Hines!
Hanson lab graduate student, Kevin Hines, was featured in an article on the Cornell Office of the Vice Provost for Research website. The article provides insight into Hines from his research journey at Cornell to his current work on increasing photosynthetic efficiency in tobacco. Click the link above to read the full article.
In November 2019, the Cornell Office of the Vice Provost for Research featured on their website ongoing research in the Hanson Lab. See a set of photos and an article here: “A Researcher’s Duality: Plants, Biomedical”.
From August 5th to 9th, 2019, Dr. Maureen Hanson participated in the SFB-TRR meeting titled “Acclimation and Chloroplast Biology: from Genes to Systems” at Kloster Irsee near Munich, Germany. Particularly, Dr. Hanson spoke about her lab’s current work on plant rubisco and carbonic anhydrase.
The meeting is part of The Green Hub SFB-TRR 175 focusing on the coordination of acclimation in plants. Also, for non-German readers, SFBs (Sonderforschungsbereich) are German-based collaborative research centers and the TRR (Transregio) indicates that it is transregional.
The Hanson Lab would like to congratulate Alexandra Mandarano on passing her Ph.D. thesis exam on July 19, 2019. Mandarano joined the Hanson Lab after completing a B.S. in Biochemistry from SUNY-Geneseo. In the lab, her work focused on the gut microbiome and immune cell metabolism in ME/CFS. This work is highlighted in a microbiome publication in PeerJ and a T cell metabolism publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The latter of which also has an accompany video.
Her time in the lab included participating in several conferences and meetings. One of these events, the NIH Accelerating Research on ME/CFS meeting in 2019, she presented her work along with other key speakers. She also received a travel scholarship to attend an ME/CFS conference in London. Since graduating, Mandarano has started a postdoctoral position at the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Congratulations, Dr. Mandarano!
Dr. Maureen Hanson was invited to be a plenary speaker at Plant Canada 2019. The conference was held in Guelph, Canada from July 7-10, 2019, and brought together several Canadian plant science societies and international speakers. Dr. Hanson spoke about improving photosynthesis in C3 plants. Additional information about the program can be found here.
The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) held their 2019 annual meeting in Kyoto, Japan from April 24th to 28th. Center member Dr. Ludovic Giloteaux attended the conference to network with international experts on the latest extracellular vesicle (EV) research. Dr. Giloteaux also presented some of our current EV research on cytokine and miRNA profiling of plasma EVs in ME/CFS. Check out the conference program for an overview of what information was covered.
InvestinME Research hosted a series of events in London with the purpose of promoting better education about ME/CFS and increasing international collaboration on ME/CFS research. The series began with the Thinking the Future Young/ECR conference on May 28th, 2019, for which Hanson lab graduate student Alexandra Mandarano received a travel scholarship to attend. Dr. Maureen Hanson attended and presented at the ninth Biomedical Research into ME Colloquium and at the public 14th Invest in ME Research Conference on May 31st.
A full report of the conference is available on the InvestinME website here and includes a recording of Dr. Hanson’s talk.
The 2019 Gordon Research Conference on RNA Editing was held in Barga, Italy from March 24th to 29th, 2019. This event marked the 11th occurrence and is subtitled “Next-generation epitranscriptomics in health and disease”. Dr. Maureen Hanson attended this conference and gave a talk titled “The RNA Editing Complex in Flowering Plants,” which was part of the “Macromolecular Machines: Complexity of RNA Modification/Editing Systems” session.
The 11th meeting of the International Conference for Plant and Mitochondrial Biology was held in Ein Gedi, Israel from March 10th to 15th, 2019. Stephane Bentolila, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor presented “Investigating OZ2, a protein related to the plastid editing factor OZ1.” His talk was part of Session 5: Gene Expression, Transcription & RNA Processing I. Take a look at the ICPMB 2019 website for the complete program and additional photos.
Dr. Hanson and BMCB graduate student Kevin Hines spoke at the Conference on Photosynthesis and Chloroplast Biogenesis in Kurashiki, Japan in November 2018, hosted by Okayama University. Dr. Hanson’s lecture was “Engineering photosynthesis in C3 plants” and Hines topic was “Chloroplast carbonic anhydrases function in photosynthesis and plant development.” After the meeting in Kurashiki, Dr. Hanson traveled to the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Okinawa to give a lecture entitled “Biology of a common but neglected disease: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” in the Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series.
Dr. Hanson, Dr. Vishal Chaudhari, Dr. Myat Lin and BMCB student Kevin Hines all attended and presented posters at the July 2018 American Society for Plant Biology Meeting Hines gave an ASPB mini-symposium talk “Chloroplast carbonic anhydrases function in photosynthesis and plant development.”
At the satellite meeting “Photosynthesis from Light to Life,” sponsored by the International Society for Photosynthesis Research, Dr. Hanson spoke on “Improving the efficiency of photosynthetic carbon fixation in C3 plants.”
Cyanobacterial Rubisco introduced into transplastomic tobacco plants was reported in Nature in September, 2014. Two different tobacco genotypes that fix all carbon with a Rubisco enzyme derived from cyanobacteria have been produced following engineering the chloroplast genome by two different strategies. Producing these plants are an important step needed to introduce the entire cyanobacterial CO2-concentration mechanism into crop plants for improved photosynthesis and crop yield.