Plant Science Stories
Greenhouse in Germany where Exposito-Alonso did research.
Exposito-Alonso recognized by Heidelberg Academy of Science
Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie’s Moises Exposito-Alonso was selected for the Heidelberg Academy of Science’s Karl...
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Moises Exposito-Alonso
Carnegie's Exposito-Alonso selected for Forbes’ “Under 30” list
Washington, DC— Carnegie evolutionary geneticist Moises Exposito-Alonso was named a member of the 2020 class of Forbes’...
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Caltech logo
Expanded Pasadena presence deepens Carnegie's relationship with Caltech
The Carnegie Institution for Science is consolidating our California research departments into an expanded presence in Pasadena. With this move, we are building on our existing relationship with...
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Moises Exposito-Alonso
Exposito-Alonso recognized for early career excellence by American Society of Naturalists
Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie’s Moises Exposito-Alonso is one of four recipients of the American Society of Naturalists’ Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award in recognition of...
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A fluorescence image of the sea anemone Exaiptasia, courtesy of Tingting Xiang
How do corals make the most of their symbiotic algae?
Stanford, CA— Corals depend on their symbiotic relationships with the algae that they host. But how do they keep algal population growth in check? The answer to this fundamental question could...
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Researchers in Tübingen courtesy of Moises Exposito-Alonso.
Predicting the mutations plants need to survive climate change
Palo Alto, CA— Plant genetic diversity in Central Europe could collapse due to temperature extremes and drought brought on by climate change, according to a new paper in Nature led by Moises...
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Octopus Spring in Yellowstone National Park courtesy of Devaki Bhaya
Carnegie researchers receive joint U.K.-U.S. grant to study hot spring microbes
Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie plant scientists Devaki Bhaya and Arthur Grossman received a nearly $2 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.K. Biotechnology and Biological...
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Public domain image of a field of sorghum.
Carnegie-led initiative receives major DOE biofuels research grant
Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie plant biologists Sue Rhee and David Ehrhardt will lead one of 25 teams awarded a total of $64 million this week by the...
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Digital genome
Revolutionary progress in understanding plant biology is being driven through advances in DNA sequencing technology. Carnegie plant scientists have played a key role in the sequencing and genome annotation efforts of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the soil alga ...
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Meet Carnegie Scientists
Moises Exposito-Alonso
Evolutionary geneticist Moises Exposito-Alonso joined the Department of Plant Biology as a staff associate in September 2019. He investigates whether and how plants will evolve to keep pace with climate change by conducting large-scale ecological and genome sequencing experiments. He also...
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Devaki Bhaya
Devaki Bhaya wants to understand how environmental stressors, such as light, nutrients, and viral attacks are sensed by and affect photosynthetic microorganisms. She is also interested in understanding the mechanisms behind microorganism movements, and how individuals in groups communicate, evolve...
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David Ehrhardt
Plants are not as static as you think. David Ehrhardt combines confocal microscopy with novel visualization methods to see the three-dimensional movement  within live plant cells to reveal the other-worldly cell choreography that makes up plant tissues. These methods allow his group to explore...
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New Way to Watch Plant-Cell Walls Assemble
Scientists, including Carnegie’s David Ehrhardt and Heather Cartwright, have exploited a way to watch protein trafficking to make cellulose in the formation of plant cell walls in real time.
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Zhiyong Wang Receives Germany’s Humboldt Research Award
Washington, DC— Carnegie’s Zhiyong Wang will receive the Humboldt Research Award, one of Germany’s most-prestigious prizes. Granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation up to 100 times each year...
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How corn’s ancient ancestor swipes left on crossbreeding
Determining how one species becomes distinct from another has been a subject of fascination dating back to Charles Darwin. New research led by Carnegie’s Matthew Evans and published in ...
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Explore Carnegie Science

Greenhouse in Germany where Exposito-Alonso did research.
Exposito-Alonso recognized by Heidelberg Academy of Science
April 10, 2020

Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie’s Moises Exposito-Alonso was selected for the Heidelberg Academy of Science’s Karl Freudenberg Prize in recognition of outstanding early career achievements in the natural sciences. The prize comes with a personal 10,000 Euro award.

Representing the German state of Baden-Württemberg, the academy honors several professors under the age of 40 with endowed prizes each year, including six in 2020. All of the recipients will give public presentations of their work, with dates to be announced. An evolutionary geneticist, Exposito-Alonso received his doctorate in 2018 from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübigen.

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Moises Exposito-Alonso
Carnegie's Exposito-Alonso selected for Forbes’ “Under 30” list
March 18, 2020

Washington, DC— Carnegie evolutionary geneticist Moises Exposito-Alonso was named a member of the 2020 class of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe list in science and healthcare. 

He was recognized for his lab’s pioneering use of genomic techniques to understand how plant species will evolve and keep pace with a changing climate. 

Out of the thousands of nominees, the 30 finalists in each of the 10 categories comprise “the world’s most impactful community of young entrepreneurs and game-changers,” said the publication in announcing his selection.  

“Growing up in southern Spain, I saw how Mediterranean

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Caltech logo
Expanded Pasadena presence deepens Carnegie's relationship with Caltech
March 17, 2020

The Carnegie Institution for Science is consolidating our California research departments into an expanded presence in Pasadena. With this move, we are building on our existing relationship with Caltech, with a goal of broadening our historic collaborations in astronomy and astrophysics and pursuing new opportunities in ecology and plant biology that will support the global fight against climate change.

This plan, which affects our research operations in Pasadena and Palo Alto, reflects Carnegie’s ongoing efforts to extend our leadership in space, Earth, and life sciences and to enhance our ability to explore new frontiers.

In selecting our Pasadena location, we

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Moises Exposito-Alonso
Exposito-Alonso recognized for early career excellence by American Society of Naturalists
February 28, 2020

Palo Alto, CA— Carnegie’s Moises Exposito-Alonso is one of four recipients of the American Society of Naturalists’ Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award in recognition of “outstanding and promising work” by individuals who are within three years of completing their Ph.D or in their final year of graduate school.

Exposito-Alonso is an evolutionary geneticist who joined Carnegie last September as a staff associate, a prestigious position designed for early career scientists who are ready to independently deploy creative approaches to challenging research projects. 

His lab is pioneering the use of genomics to ask whether species will

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Digital genome

Revolutionary progress in understanding plant biology is being driven through advances in DNA sequencing technology. Carnegie plant scientists have played a key role in the sequencing and genome annotation efforts of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the soil alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Now that many genomes from algae to mosses and trees are publicly available, this information can be mined using bioinformatics to build models to understand gene function and ultimately for designing plants for a wide spectrum of applications.

 Carnegie researchers have pioneered a genome-wide gene association network Aranet that can assign functions

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Matthew Evans

Matthew Evans wants to provide new tools for plant scientists to engineer better seeds for human needs. He focuses on one of the two phases to their life cycle. In the first phase, the sporophyte is the diploid generation—that is with two similar sets of chromosomes--that undergoes meiosis to produce cells called spores. Each spore divides forming a single set of chromosomes (haploid) --the gametophyte--which produces the sperm and egg cells.

Evans studies how the haploid genome is required for normal egg and sperm function. In flowering plants, the female gametophyte, called the embryo sac, consists of four cell types: the egg cell, the central cell, and two types of

Meet this Scientist
Moises Exposito-Alonso

Evolutionary geneticist Moises Exposito-Alonso joined the Department of Plant Biology as a staff associate in September 2019. He investigates whether and how plants will evolve to keep pace with climate change by conducting large-scale ecological and genome sequencing experiments. He also develops computational methods to derive fundamental principles of evolution, such as how fast natural populations acquire new mutations and how past climates shaped continental-scale biodiversity patterns. His goal is to use these first principles and computational approaches to forecast evolutionary outcomes of populations under climate change to anticipate potential future

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Zhiyong Wang - Acting Director

Zhiyong Wang was appointed acting director of Department of Plant Biology in 2018.

Wang’s research aims to understand how plant growth is controlled by environmental and endogenous signals. Being sessile, plants respond environmental changes by altering their growth behavior. As such, plants display high developmental plasticity and their growth is highly sensitive to environmental conditions. Plants have evolved many hormones that function as growth regulators, and growth is also responsive to the availability of nutrients and energy (photosynthates).

To understand how plant cells perceive and transduce various regulatory signals, and how combinations of complex

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Devaki Bhaya

Devaki Bhaya wants to understand how environmental stressors, such as light, nutrients, and viral attacks are sensed by and affect photosynthetic microorganisms. She is also interested in understanding the mechanisms behind microorganism movements, and how individuals in groups communicate, evolve, share resources. To these ends, she focuses on one-celled, aquatic cyanobacteria, in the lab with model organisms and with organisms in naturally occurring communities.

 Phototaxis is the ability of organisms to move directionally in response to a light source.  Many cyanobacteria exhibit phototaxis, both towards and away from light. The ability to move into optimal light

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