- Our photo makes the cover of Nature Plants
Our photo was featured on the cover of the October issue of Nature Plants in support of our paper published there this month. - Sonia Evans’s paper published in Nature Plants
Rubisco supplies pyruvate for the2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate pathway Sonia E. Evans, Yuan Xu, Matthew E. Bergman, Scott A. Ford, Yingxia Liu, Thomas D. Sharkey, Michael A. Phillips https://rdcu.be/dVZIY 10.1038/s41477-024-01791-z - Scott Ford’s paper on the Salvia divinorum genome published in BMC Plant Biology
https://rdcu.be/dVKrP 10.1186/s12870-024-05633-0 A chromosome level reference genome of Diviner’s sage (Salvia divinorum) provides insight into salvinorin A biosynthesis Scott A. Ford, Rob W. Ness, Moonhyuk Kwon, Dae-Kyun Ro, Michael A. Phillips - Sonia Evans wins the 2024 Roberta Bondar award
Awarded by the Department of Biology for graduate student research excellence by the Department of Biology on September 30, 2024 - PhD student Sonia E. Evans publishes in Nature Communications“Plastid ancestors lacked a complete Entner-Doudoroff pathway, limiting plants to glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway”
- Mike gives invited talk at the 15th International TerpNet MeetingAug 2, 2023 in Davis, California “Natural and synthetic sources of substrate for the MEP pathway”
- PhD student Matthew Bergman defends thesis
- Invited talk to the Department of Chemistry and Physical SciencesMike gives an invited research seminar to the Department of Chemistry and Physical Sciences on 18 January 2023 at the University of Toronto – Mississauga
- Master’s student Scott Ford publishes first paper as lead authorThis week, new lab member Scott Ford published a first authored paper in the Journal of Phycology from his senior thesis project in the lab of Prof. Rob Ness. Congratulations, Scott. S Ford, R Craig, R Ness “A novel method for identifying Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Chlorophyta) and closely related species from nature” Journal of Phycology
- Phillips lab well represented at the Canadian Society for Plant Biologists Eastern Regional meetingThree students from the Philips lab gave oral presentations at the 2022 CSPB Eastern Regional meeting hosted at the University of Toronto – Scarborough campus on Saturday, December 3. Many thanks to the organizers Profs. Adam Mott, Eliana Gonzales-Vigil, and Sonia Gazzarrini for a well organized and well executed conference.
- Our review on acyclic monoterpenes published in Phytochemistry ReviewsThis constitutes Matthew Bergman’s 7th first authored paper and 8th paper overall and new student Anya Frank’s first paper with the lab. Full citation: “Biosynthesis, natural distribution, and biological activities of acyclic monoterpenes and their derivatives” Bergman, Franks, and Phillips, Phytochemistry Reviews (2022 online) doi: 10.1007/s11101-022-09849-6
- Matthew Bergman wins the Roberta Bondar Graduate Excellence Award for 2022Another important recognition for Matthew, who shared the honor with his co-winner Ahmed Hasan from the lab of Prof. Rob Ness
- New Phillips lab website launchedOn Saturday, 24 September, I launched a new website for the Phillips lab, terpenemetabolism.com
- Mike promoted to Associate Professor
- Sonia Evans awarded a Black, Indigenous, and Racialized graduate research fellowship
- Our book chapter “Soapbark Triterpenes: Quillaja brasiliensis Cell Culture Sapogenin and Free Sterol Analysis by GCMS” published in “Plant Secondary Metabolism Engineering” (Springer)Visiting PhD student Yve de Silva Magedans has published more work from her time in the Phillips lab. Appearing as a chapter in the Methods in Molecular Biology book series, this work details her sterol and triterpene analysis from the soapbark tree, Quillaja brasiliensis. Congratulations, Yve, on your latest publication. The full citation: Magedans Y.V.S., Phillips M.A. (2022) Soapbark Triterpenes: Quillaja brasiliensis Cell Culture Sapogenin and Free Sterol Analysis by GCMS. In: Fett-Neto A.G. (eds) Plant Secondary Metabolism Engineering. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2469. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2185-1_10
- Outstanding undergraduate student Sara Yoshimi Tropp wins two awardsSara Yoshimi, a fourth year UTM Biology student who recently completed a successful undergraduate thesis project (BIO481) in the Phillips lab, has been honored with two awards recently. First, she received the Principal’s Award of Excellence in Student Leadership on April 18 of this year. This past week, she was recognized with a best speaker award for a presentation on her thesis project in the undergraduate BIO481 2022 research symposium. Congratulations, Sara, on both of your awards!
- Undergraduate Anya Franks wins a University of Toronto Excellence Award (UTEA) to conduct summer research in the Phillips labAll star undergraduate student Anya Franks, who recently completed a research opportunity project in the Phillips lab, will continue her research on geranium essential oil biosynthesis during the summer of 2022. To recognize her significant academic accomplishments, she has just been awarded a University of Toronto Excellence Award. This coveted award entails a cash prize to fund undergraduate summer research, and Anya received this award for her project entitled “Biochemical characterization of prenyltransferases in rose-scented geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)“. The UTEA award recognizes scholastic excellence and is only awarded to students who have demonstrated exceptional academic performance. In Anya’s case, this …
- Matthew Bergman’s paper on ammonia chemical ionization GCMS accepted at Plant PhysiologyUpdate: The online version of this article is available here. Our manuscript entitled “An Arabidopsis GCMS chemical ionization technique to quantify adaptive responses in central metabolism”, led by Matthew E. Bergman, has been accepted for publication in Plant Physiology as a Research Article in the “Breakthrough Technologies, Tools and Resources” categories. This paper represents the culmination of several years of method development work to track central metabolism in the model plant Arabidopsis by using a soft ionization gas chromatography – mass spectrometry technique. This is Matthew’s 7th publication and 6th as first author. Lab mate Sonia E. Evans appears as …
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- Sonia Evan’s first first authored paper published in Plant MethodsGraduate student Sonia E. Evan’s first paper from her thesis work was published today in Plant Methods. This paper describes methodology for high resolution whole plant 13CO2 labeling techniques, and it formalizes several related techniques being used around the lab over the past several years. Congratulations, Sonia!