Webinars
Biosynthesis and regulation of plant phenolic compounds
May 14, 2025 | 12:15–1 p.m. Eastern | Free registration required
Speaker
Erich Grotewold
Professor, Michigan State University
Erich Grotewold is a professor of plant biology at Michigan State University and a JBC Editorial Board member. His lab's research includes understanding the control of plant gene expression, establishing architecture of plant gene regulatory networks, engineering plant metabolism, phytochemicals' transport, and identifying plant/animal cellular targets of natural products. Grotewold received his B.Sc./Ph.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Following a postdoc at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he became a staff investigator there. In 1998, he moved to The Ohio State University where he became director of the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center and director of the Center for Applied Plant Sciences. In 2017, he moved to Michigan State University as chair of the BMB department. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Plant Biologists.
The ASBMB Breakthroughs webinar series offers a window into the cutting-edge biochemistry and molecular biology research driving discovery.
Plants are remarkable chemical factories, producing specialized metabolites like phenolic compounds that aid in environmental adaptation and act as major carbon sinks. This presentation focuses on the biosynthesis and regulation of flavonoids and phenylpropanoids (two phenolic compound classes) in maize and other plants. Grotewold will explore how natural variation in metabolite accumulation drives pathway discovery and discuss gene regulatory mechanisms linked to variations in metabolite levels. Finally, he will highlight unexpected biological activities of flavonoid pathway intermediates, offering new insights into their roles beyond the conventional functions of the resulting flavonoid pigments.
This webinar is brought to you by the Journal of Biological Chemistry, an ASBMB Journal.
