Dr. Susan Lolle

Biography

Susan Lolle seeks to understand the fundamental genetic strategies that plants use to aid survival in changing environments. As plants cannot flee from hostile conditions, they must adapt to survive. By gaining insights into plant-specific survival strategies, Lolle's research aims to improve crop adaptation to climate change, contributing to global food security efforts. Her research group focuses on epidermal cells, which play crucial roles in reproduction, growth, and normal development of plants. They are interested in understanding how epidermal cell fate is determined and how the epidermal state is maintained. Using genetic approaches, Lolle's team has identified loci in Arabidopsis thaliana that affect epidermal function, particularly in modulating contact-mediated adhesion events. Collectively, these studies have established a direct connection between the biological properties of the cuticle, cell adhesion, and reproduction. Genetic analyses have uncovered an unexpected relationship between increased genetic variation at a locus involved in aspects of epidermal development. Plants that harbor lesions at this locus exhibit genome-wide variation, resulting in genetically discordant somatic sectors within single plants. Although the mechanisms of this genetic variation remain unknown, their verification signifies a significant paradigm shift in the field of genome biology.

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