Speakers

Climate change and Stress Combination: Will we survive?

Ron Mittler
Curators’ Distinguished Professor
The Division of Plant Sciences and Technology and Department of Surgery,

University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65201.
mittlerr@missouri.edu

 

The complexity of environmental conditions encountered by plants in the field, or in nature, is gradually increasing due to anthropogenic activities that promote global warming, climate change, and increased levels of pollutants. While in the past it seemed sufficient to use the ‘reductionist’ approach of studying how plants acclimate to one stress condition at a time, the complex conditions developing on our planet necessitate a new and more ‘holistic’ approach of studying stress in plants: Acclimation to multiple stress conditions occurring concurrently or sequentially. In my talk I will describe new and exciting findings that highlight why we all need to consider the impacts of stress combination on agriculture, as well as address the challenges of studying stress combination in the lab and the field.

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Please note: In my talk I will prove that 1+1≠2, but do not be alarmed, this is biology, not mathematics…

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Ron Mittler is a Professor in the Division of Plant Sciences and Technology and in the Department of Surgery, and a Bond Life Sciences Center Investigator, at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Rutgers University. His research is focused on reactive oxygen species metabolism and signaling in plant and animal cells, systemic responses of plants to stress, cancer biology, and stress combination.