Dr Jim Rowe

My research group investigates how plants regulate their water status to thrive and survive under stressful conditions. We strive to uncover how plants establish distinct patterns in the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA), then uncover how these patterned responses limit water loss and coordinate stress responses. This knowledge will pinpoint novel regulators of internal water flow, transferable to crops, so we can craft plants primed for flash droughts, helping them flourish under duress. Whilst in Alexander Jones' group (Cambridge) I led a project to develop genetically encoded tools allowing us to see and quantify ABA in living plants (Rowe et al 2023). This major innovation resulted in surprising and illuminating results. We found that different types of stress elicited different patterns of ABA accumulation. Now, we must find out the functional relevance of each of these context-dependent, spatially defined hormone accumulations. My research strives to uncover how plants establish these distinct ABA patterns, and then uncover how these patterned responses limit water loss and coordinate stress responses. This knowledge will pinpoint novel regulators of internal water flow, transferable to crops, so we can craft plants primed for flash droughts, helping them flourish under duress. My research group uses advanced imaging (FRET, FLIM, LSM), writes custom analysis tools ( https://github.com/JimageJ/FRETENATOR2 , https://github.com/JimageJ/EZ-Peeler ) and bio-engineering (ABACUS2) to answer these questions.

• Light Microscopy & Related Techniques
• Life Sciences
• Life Sciences/Light Microscopy & Related Techniques
• Data Analysis in Imaging
• Analytical Techniques
• Confocal Microscopy
• General Microscopy