Dr. Keiko Torii

Biography

Torii received B.S., M.S., Ph.D. degrees from the University of Tsukuba. She became a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology (formerly Botany) at the University of Washington in 1999, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005, and then to Full Professor in 2009. In 2011, she received the title of College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Distinguished Professor of Biology. Additionally, she became an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 2011. Currently, she holds the Johnson & Johnson Centennial Chair in Plant Cell Biology at the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2013 to 2022, she ran a lab at the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules (WPI-ITbM) at Nagoya University, Japan, as an Overseas Principal Investigator. Her research investigates how positional cues govern tissue patterning and organ shape, as well as how lineage-specific stem cells are initiated, maintained, and terminally differentiated during plant development. She addresses fundamental questions in developmental biology using the differentiation of stomata as a model. Stomata are small valves that serve as interfaces for plants to interact with the atmosphere and are essential for plant survival in a global environment. Torii has revealed intricate cell-cell communications mediated by small chemical signals that influence stem cell divisions and fate specification. Her aim is to elucidate functional tissue patterns through cross-disciplinary approaches, collaborating with organic chemists and molecular structural theorists to develop artificial ligand-receptor systems that can manipulate signaling pathways controlling plant development.

Research Interests

Awards