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Wolfgang Busch is a professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and the Integrative Biology Laboratory, executive director of the Harnessing Plants Initiative, and Hess Chair in Plant Science. Busch is a plant biologist who studies the genes and molecular mechanisms that determine how a plant’s genetic information interacts with the environment and is translated by molecular, cellular, and physiological networks to shape plant root growth. His research could help grow more resilient food sources—an increasingly urgent problem in the face of the planet’s shifting climate and increasing population—and help develop root systems that can be utilized on a large scale to store carbon in the soil that was captured by above-ground plant parts from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
We are about to unfold for you in adventure. In the world of science, science that deals with the nature of living things. We looked at how can plants survive if they're exposed to heat. Because if you're an animal or human, you can walk away. You can go somewhere in the shade, plants cannot. I realized how amazing plants are. They stand still. But they survive all these changes in the environment. And they actually not only survive, they thrive in a changing environment that can change many, many degrees over the course of a day. That sparked my interest. And I asked myself like, how is that actually possible?
My name is Wolfgang Busch, I'm a professor in Salk's Cellular and Molecular Plant Biology Laboratory, and also in the Integrative Biology Laboratory.
I grew up in Germany. It was a pretty rural area in the center of Germany, in the western part of Germany where I grew up. It had beautiful natural settings, fields, and forests. I really explored nature with friends, and my sisters went into the forest, climbed all the trees, explored the swamps, almost drowned in a pond. We broke through the ice once and that I think sparked my interest in nature. Even though, I have to comment, I wasn't interested in plants in particular, because at that time, it was more the backdrop for my adventures.
Plants smelled good, looked very aesthetic. But I was much more fascinated by animals and technology at that time. Something that I started to do when I was around nine was to read a lot. I think every two or three days, I went into the public library and got another stack of books. And the librarian knew me by a name, and I read everything.
When I was in high school, I had this amazing biology teacher. She started to introduce the concept of molecular genetics and DNA and transcription translation already very early. That really inspired me to study biology.
I started my undergrad in biology at the University of Tübingen, which is in the southwest of Germany. My main interest was in cell biology and genetics and microbiology.
First, I really got into plants when I had the opportunity to use the cutting edge technology at that time and that technology was called micro arrays. I started to actually realize how interesting plants are because you look at how can plants survive if they're exposed to heat. I realized that's actually pretty remarkable, because if you're an animal or human, you can walk away. You can go somewhere in the shade. Plants cannot. They don't have a nervous system. They can't walk. They can't run. So how is that possible?
That really lighted my fire in terms of trying to understand and being fascinated by plants. My journey to the Salk has been a long one. After I started my lab in Vienna, Austria, I had the opportunity, six years later, to apply for a Salk position in the Integrated Biology Laboratory. So I applied and I came here.
I moved my whole lab from one continent to another continent and I've been happy ever since. In my lab, we asked the question, we have different strains of the plant. These different strains can have very different root growth.
Some grow deep, some grow shallow. Some respond very quickly to environmental cues such as water or nutrients, and some don't. We have been pioneering approaches with which we can identify genetic variants and molecular mechanisms that underpin these differences. It also has impacts on a very large challenge that we face on our planet. That is, how do we actually produce enough food, feed and fiber in the face of climate change? Something else that is also very important has become more important, the Harnessing Plants Initiative, is that we can not only learn, we can also change the world. We can make the world a better place.
And we try to do this by engineering plants that are better in storing more carbon for longer to mitigate the climate crisis. Something that I have been worried since middle school. We knew back then global warming will happen, but I never felt empowered or able to do something about it. But now we can actually leverage our science.
This is an incredible motivator and it's enormously powerful to think about it, that this will have a lasting impact on not only science, but also the world.
LA JOLLA–Insect-eating plants have fascinated biologists for more than a century, but how plants evolved the ability to capture and consume live prey has largely remained a mystery. Now, Salk scientists, along with collaborators from Washington University in St. Louis, have investigated the molecular basis of plant carnivory and found evidence that it evolved from mechanisms plants use to defend themselves. Learn more »
LA JOLLA—Hidden underground networks of plant roots snake through the earth foraging for nutrients and water, similar to a worm searching for food. Yet, the genetic and molecular mechanisms that govern which parts of the soil roots explore remain largely unknown. Now, Salk Institute researchers have discovered a gene that determines whether roots grow deep or shallow in the soil. Read more »
The Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative (HPI) is an innovative, scalable and bold approach to fight climate change by optimizing a plant’s natural ability to capture and store carbon and adapt to diverse climate conditions. We believe that our approach can help draw down and store more carbon and that we can—combined with other global efforts—mitigate the disastrous effects of climate change while providing more food, fuel and fiber for a growing population. Learn more »
