TAB provides free access peer-reviewed articles on key plant model organism

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) has appointed Keiko Torii as the next editor in chief of The Arabidopsis Book (TAB). Torii becomes editor on April 1.

TAB is a free access peer-reviewed serial publication that was launched by ASPB in 2002 under the direction of plant biologists Chris Somerville and Elliot Meyerowitz as a new model for communicating up-to-date and comprehensive information about a broad range of topics in research on Arabidopsis thaliana and related species. New articles are published as fields evolve, and older content is substantively revised on an ongoing basis. There are currently nearly 100 TAB chapters freely available at http://bit.ly/TheArabidopsisBook.

Torii is distinguished professor of biology at the University of Washington and was recently selected as an HHMI-GBMF Investigator by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. She is currently a member of the editorial board for TAB, a monitoring editor for Plant Physiology, and a mentor for ASPB’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program.

Torii studies how plant cells interact to establish functional patterns during development. She was among the first to discover a role for receptor kinases in plant growth and development. Through the analysis of ERECTA-family receptor kinase mutants, Torii further revealed that this family of receptor kinases regulates patterning and differentiation of stomata, small pores on the plant surface for efficient gas exchange. She played a key role in further identification of peptide signaling ligands and 'master regulatory' transcription factors specifying stomatal development. She is now working across disciplines to understand the regulatory dynamics and signaling pathways that create stomatal patterns. Greater understanding of this process can help predict how plants will cope with changing climates, including droughts and other environmental challenges.

Each TAB article provides a scholarly and authoritative overview of the state of knowledge about the topic being covered, generally including hyperlinks to long-lived web resources to facilitate reader access to information about genes, datasets, and other key references.

Torii follows current editor Rob Last of Michigan State University.

Photo of Keiko Torii by Stephen Brashear/AP, © HHMI

CONTACT: Nancy Winchester, Director of Publications

nancyw@aspb.org, (301) 296-0904 (office)

ASPB is a professional scientific society, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, devoted to the advancement of the plant sciences worldwide. With a membership of nearly 5,000 plant scientists from throughout the United States and more than 50 other nations, the Society publishes two of the most widely cited plant science journals: The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology. For more information about ASPB, please visit http://www.aspb.org/. Also follow ASPB on Facebook at facebook.com/myASPB and on Twitter @ASPB.