Sarah Robinson

Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium 2026 logo - Shaping Life-Mechanisms of Morphogenesis. Timelapse of a developing Arabidopsis leaf imaged at 9-12 days old under a confocal microscope, with cells segmented and coloured using MorphographX software. Images by Sarah Attrill.

Register Now!
#SLS26 Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium | 22-24 Sept 2026 | Cambridge, UK
Theme - Shaping Life: Mechanisms of Morphogenesis!

If you are into Plant Development - join us!

In-person + livestream
Limited fee waivers
www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/sls

Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium 2026 logo - Shaping Life-Mechanisms of Morphogenesis. Timelapse of a developing Arabidopsis leaf imaged at 9-12 days old under a confocal microscope, with cells segmented and coloured using MorphographX software. Images by Sarah Attrill.

Registrations now open for #SLS26 Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium 2026 in Cambridge, UK — Shaping Life: Mechanisms of Morphogenesis!
Join us explore how cellular, genetic & mechanical forces sculpt plant form
📅 22–24 Sept 2026
In-person + livestream
Limited fee waivers
www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/sls
#plantsi

image of a maize inflorescence meristem that is labeled by the plasma membrane marker PIP2-CFP and BAM1D-YFP.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/JAIVZX...

Excited to share my latest work in @newphyt.bsky.social. Here, we used TurboID proximity labeling with CLAVATA receptors FEA3 and BAM1D in maize meristems to better understand the signaling pathways important for meristem regulation. #PlantScience

Photo of the interior of award-winning Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University building. Glass walls look into the research labs and naturally lit staircase and walkway with study boxes looking into the Botanic Garden

Launch your own independent research group!

2x David Sainsbury Career Development Fellowships at @slcuplants.bsky.social

📆 Apply by 30 Jan 2026

More info:
👉 www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/careers/grou...
Job details:
👉 www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/david-s...

Please share this post #PlantSciJobs #PlantSciJob

Smart microscopy, computer vision, and controlling cells with light -- my PhD thesis in 3 minutes YouTube video by Pertz Lab

Won best thesis award with this video! 4 years of research and play in 3 minutes :')
youtu.be/so0fPlK1-LM

🧵 Just out in Cell after more than 10 years in the making!

🎓 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Plants and animals evolve radically different body plans.

Do they also operate under fundamentally different molecular evolutionary constraints during organ formation?

@cellpress.bsky.social

Detection of gene activity of a FOLD gene (black spots) specifically in the structures formed by the symbiotic fungus Rhizophagus irregularis (labelled in yellow) within legume root cells. Image by Edouard Evangelisti.

Project Name: DIY Plant Walls: Engineering Plant Cell Size and Material Strength using Fungal Proteins

Supervisors: @dromius.bsky.social & @robinsonsci.bsky.social

Application Deadline: 5pm Monday 19 January 2026

Start Date: 1 October 2026

More details: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
2/3🧵

Beautiful work. Congratulations!

Cell wall patterning regulates plant stem cell dynamics The plant cell wall regulates development through spatiotemporal modulation of its chemical and mechanical properties. Pectin methylesterification is recognized as a rheological switch controlling wal...

Thrilled to have our paper out in @science.org. Cell division guides plant cell wall formation. Does the reverse hold? We show that bimodal pectin methylesterification, via PME5 mRNA nuclear sequestration, influences plant cell division and cell plate orientation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Photo of a whale, brain scans, a city and a leaf to represent awarded Accelerate-C2D3 funded projects

We are delighted to announce the 2025 Accelerate – @c2d3.cam.ac.uk funded projects! 🎉

Projects will catalyse discoveries to accelerate scientific progress & create AI tools capable of delivering benefits for science & society.

Find out more: bit.ly/4rpvSiy

Very excited to advertise 15 plant engineering biology PhD projects @biologyatyork.bsky.social @camplantsci.bsky.social @slcuplants.bsky.social @johninnescentre.bsky.social & University of Bristol. 🪴 🥬 🔧 🧬 Come join this new Plant BioDesign community!

www.findaphd.com/phds/?Keywor...

Roses don’t just defend themselves. Their prickles are geometrically ideal for gripping surfaces, supporting vertical growth, and, when needed, creating lacerations that deter herbivores. Students - join us to investigate how biological form and physical law work together!

Final, edited version of the paper now available
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New pre-print from the team!

The manuscript is @emma-raven.bsky.social's PhD work showing that whether a leaf is a carbon sink or a carbon source influences how they execute immune responses.

Have a read!

#PlantScience
@johninnescentre.bsky.social

They look intriguing. I am interested to learn if it is moving. What age did you heat shock?

I was tremendously lucky to be in @xanderjones.bsky.social's lab to watch @bijuntang.bsky.social move from technician to PhD to Postdoc and produce this magnum opus. #SalicS1 is the just reward for years of brilliance and hard work.Well done Bijun, Xander, Jing, and everyone involved! #SalicylicAcid

The image shows two straight magenta lines running in parallel. On either side of them, there are two wavy green lines. The oval-shaped blue chloroplast is squished between one magenta and one green line.

While the first image showed the outside edge of surface mature Arabidopsis root cell, this second image from the same experiment shows the border between two root cells. The large plastid (blue due to chlorophyll autofluorescence) is squashed between the two membranes.
#arabidopsis #cellbiology

Eleven pale seedlings grown next to each other in a row with their yellowish tip bend downwards. Photo: Qian Ma

🧪🌾News - How do seedlings straighten when emerging from the soil?🔬

@srobertgroup.bsky.social & collaborators have identified a protein that promotes this seedling straightening via the plant hormone auxin.

Read more about the story published in @pnas.org here👇:
www.upsc.se/about-upsc/n...

Fantastic work. Congratulations.

Here it is! Epidermal cells in the root can figure out if they are covered by the root cap or not using mechanical signals! Thanks to @ckirchhelle.bsky.social, @moritznowack.bsky.social, @nathan-german.bsky.social Annamaria Kiss and all the others!

Really nice. I look forward to reading in more detail.

We have two open Post-Doc positions in my group at the interface with:
1- @ataly.bsky.social for molecular dynamics
2- Bruno Guillotin from protein mobility

Apply by sending CV, two ref letters and a short motivation letter to me : emmanuelle.bayer@u-bordeaux.fr. Deadline 15 sept.

The maintenance of plant cell wall integrity involves complex molecular interactions. In this review, preetmanchanda.bsky.social summarizes the pivotal roles of RALF, LRX, and FERONIA as well as their interactions in different cell and tissue systems.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Cell-to-cell translocation of florigen is inhibited by low ambient temperature through abscisic acid signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
#plantscience

Plants monitor the integrity of their barrier by sensing gas diffusion - Nature A study using Arabidopsis shows that plants can monitor the integrity of their outer barriers by sensing gas diffusion, enabling them to initiate wound repair to prevent water loss and pathogen entry.

How plants sense injury in their barrier tissue, periderm? Painstakingly detailed and amazing work by post doc Hiroyuki Iida shows that wounding is sensed by the diffusion of two gases: ethylene and oxygen. @treebiocoe.bsky.social‬ @erc.europa.eu‬ 1/x 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Plz repost. Fresh Preprint led by @alexguyon.bsky.social
When a pathogen pushes into a cell already occupied by a symbiotic fungus, things change. New membrane phospholipids at pathogen haustoria! This may impact immune receptor positioning & defense secretion. -
And the roots are more resistant!

Promotional poster with images of an Arabidopsis flower development over time from a cluster of identical cells to the final flower and two models of Arabirbiopsis flower meristems highligting active genes. Text reads: 9th Plant Computational Biology Workshop, 8-12 September 2025, Sainsbury Laboratory, University fo Cambridge.

🚨 Calling all plant modelling enthusiasts!
Plant Computational Biology Workshop
Open to researchers at all levels
Workshop is free. Participants cover own travel, food & accommodation
📅 8-12 Sept | 💻 Talks, tools & hand-on sessions
🔗 www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/computationa...
#ComputationalBiology #PlantSci

It is a Tradescantia leaf and the yellow dots are stomata. Thanks for asking.

🤯 Look at this confocal image of a endomycorrhiza fungus inside a 400 million old fossil plant. Check out the new preprint by Christine Strullu-Derrien, @dromius.bsky.social and Ray from @slcuplants.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... for more pictures and a video. Congratulations 🎉

Lovely image. It looks like it has some stomatal spacing issues.