Group - Alexander Jones

I am interested in understanding how plant cells and organs acquire identity and how plants adapt their development in response to other organisms. During my PhD, I studied cell differentiation and cell fate stabilization of the root ground tissue layers under the supervision of Dr. Philip Benfey at Duke University, USA (Drapek et al. 2018, Chen, Drapek et al. 2019).

Research Interests

My research interests lie in environmental regulation of plant development. I am fascinated by the diverse range morphological decisions that plants can make and the profound effects on survivability and yields that developmental plasticity brings. As phytohormones integrate environmental signals with development, in a cell and tissue specific manner, to coordinate these decisions, understanding their localisation and dynamics is essential to understanding development.

Research Interests

I studied Biology at the University of Rome, La Sapienza (Italy). During my undergraduate studies (BSc. and MSc), I worked on the seed germination regulation in Arabidopsis thaliana. My interest in plant physiology continued during my PhD (University of Freiburg, Germany), where I studied the regulation of Arabidopsis seedling development under different light conditions.

Research Interests

I have long been fascinated by how plants change their physiology and development to suit dynamic environments without a centralised information processing system. In particular, I’ve spent my scientific career investigating how a suite of mobile small molecules, the phytohormones, serve as both signal-integrators and program activators in plants.