computational plant biology

[INVESTIGATORS]
alex cunha
Quantitative studies in plant developmental biology require monitoring and measuring the changes in cells and tissues as growth gives rise to intricate patterns. The success of these studies has been amplified by the combined strengths of two complementary techniques, namely live imaging and computational image analysis. Live imaging records time-lapse images showing the spatial-temporal progress of tissue growth with cells dividing and changing shape under controlled laboratory experiments. Image processing and analysis make sense of these data by providing computational ways to extract and interpret quantitative developmental information present in the acquired images. Manual labeling and qualitative interpretation of images are limited as they don't scale well to large data sets and cannot provide field measurements to feed into mathematical and computational models of growth and patterning. Computational analysis, when it can be made sufficiently accurate, is more efficient, complete, repeatable, and less biased.
[SELECTED WORK]
Computational analysis of live cell images of the Arabidopsis thaliana plant.
Cunha A, Tarr PT, Roeder AH, Altinok A, Mjolsness E, Meyerowitz EM.
Methods Cell Biol. 2012
Segmenting the sepal and shoot apical meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana.
Cunha AL, Roeder AH, Meyerowitz EM.
Annu Rev Plant Biol. 2010
Variability in the control of cell division underlies sepal epidermal patterning in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Roeder AH, Chickarmane V, Cunha A, Obara B, Manjunath BS, Meyerowitz EM.
PLoS Biol. 2010 May 11