Lab News

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5 March 2024 Welcome to Yalin Liu who started her PhD in the lab today. Her project will contribute to our research on the circadian clock in wheat.

27 February 2024 Welcome to Callum and Timothy, who started in the lab this week. Callum is doing his Honours project on NAC transcription factors and Timothy is doing a 3rd-year project on calcium channels. Good luck with your projects!

20 February 2024 We are very excited that our first wheat publication, lead impressively by Chris and with valuable input from colleagues and collaborators, is now available on bioRxivIt describes our discovery that extant variation in the circadian clock of wheat cultivars influences the timing of leaf senescence and grain quality.

9 February 2024 Chris and Mike were invited to write a Perspective article for Science about a really cool new paper about how photosynthetic signals contribute to day length measurement in plants.

8 January 2024 A very big congratulations to Xiang Li who submitted her PhD thesis today! Well done on lots of excellent work!

14 December 2023 A big congratulations to Josh who has been awarded a GRDC Research Scholarship to support his PhD project.

27 November 2023 The lab is represented this week at the ASPS meeting in Hobart. Chris is running the student session and Anna is giving a Lightning talk.

24 November 2023 A very significant day for the lab today: Xiang delivered her PhD completion seminar and Chris submitted his PhD thesis! A huge congratulations to both of you!!

15 November 2023 Mike is in Canberra this week to present at the ASBMB meeting.

3 November 2023 A very big congratulations to Robert who submitted his Honours thesis today. Great work!

26 October 2023 Congratulations to Chris, who gave his PhD completion seminar today. Well done on a great project and excellent seminar.

20 September 2023 Mike and Chris are in Perth this week for PAG International. They’re both talking in the Circadian clocks workshop.

25 August 2023 Welcome to Anna who arrived in Melbourne this week to continue her MelPoPP PhD project.

31 July 2023 Josh officially starts his PhD this week. He’ll be contributing to a GRDC-funded project to investigate the role of the circadian clock in heat tolerance in wheat.

3 July 2023 Chris is in Singapore this week for the New Phytologist Next Generation Scientists Symposium where he will present some of his PhD research.

7 June 2023 Mike is in Japan this week for the International Conference on Arabidopsis Research to give a talk about some of our recent work on superoxide as a signal in the clock. Mike Ting (former PhD student) is also taking about his circadian translatome work from his PhD.

24 March 2023 Congratulations to Josh, who has been offered a scholarship to start his PhD in the lab. He’ll be working with Chris on circadian rhythms in wheat.

27 February 2023 Welcome back to Robert, who officially starts his Honours project today. He’ll be working on the role of superoxide in the circadian clock.

30 January 2023 We have published a preprint on bioRxiv about a group of sugar-regulated transcription factors we identified from our published RNA-seq experiment. This work is the culmination of Yandong’s and Runyu’s masters projects, with a big final push from Josh to bring it together. Nice work everyone!

12 January 2023 It’s a nice start to the year: our review for Current Opinion in Plant Biology on spatial and temporal organisation of metabolic signals affecting the clock has been published online.

10 October 2022 We were asked to write a Spotlight for a recent article in Molecular Plant, and it’s now published online.

27 September 2022 We are at ComBio this week. Xiang is presenting a poster and Chris is giving a Lightning Talk, both on Friday.

28 July 2022 Mike has written a short article for Pursuit to highlight our paper in New Phytologist and explain why it might be a good idea for plants to be on drugs.

13 July 2022 Our most recent pre-print has now been accepted for publication in New PhytologistIt describes a chemical screen for modifiers of sugar-activated circadian gene expression and revealed calcium signalling acting downstream of the superoxide signal we recently identified. This work was driven brilliantly by Xiang with excellent contributions from others in the lab and collaborators. This is an important milestone in a long-running project. Congratulations, team!

20 June 2022 Chris is in Belfast this week to give a talk at the International Congress for Arabidopsis Research. Good luck, Chris!

16 June 2022 Robert gave his final project talk today. Well done on a fantastic semester and good luck with the report!

14 June 2022 Congratulations to Lucas who gave his final seminar for his MSc project today. Well done on a fantastic project and an excellent thesis.

28 February 2022 Welcome to Robert Albiston who is joining the lab this semester for a SCIE30001 undergraduate research project.

13 January 2022 Huge congratulations to Dr Mike Ting, who after passing his University of Melbourne PhD thesis examination some months ago has now passed his University of Potsdam PhD defence. Well done on a fantastic joint PhD, Mike!

30 November 2021 We’ve been awarded a Thomas Davies Research Grant from the AAS. This will allow us to follow up some hypotheses from our recent PNAS paper about how superoxide regulates the clock.

28 November 2021 A paper in collaboration with Ute Kraemer has been accepted for publication in Plant JournalIt reports that IRT1, the major root iron-uptake protein in Arabidopsis, has an extra function independent of its transport activity.

25 November 2021 ASPS2021 was today! The lab was well represented at the VIC node with by talks from Chris, Lucas and Josh. And Chris won Runner-Up for Best Student Presentation. Well done all! It was a great day.

20 November 2021 We have posted a manuscript on bioRxiv describing our chemical screen for modifiers of sugar-regulation of the clock. A lot of excellent work from Xiang with contributions from Dongjing, Gizem and Ángela and help from our wonderful collaborators.

12 November 2021 Josh gave his final MSc seminar today so his thesis is now all done and dusted. Great job! Time for a long overdue lab lunch.

5 November 2021 Congratulations to Anna Philippova for completing her PhD confirmation today from Germany. Looking forward to her joining us in Melbourne very soon!

22 October 2021 Congratulations to Runyu for submitting her MBiotech thesis today. Nice job!

12 August 2021 Congratulations to Mike Ting, who submitted his PhD thesis today!!!

15 July 2021 Congratulations (again) to Chris who has been awarded the Alfred Nicholas Fellowship! This will enable him to do some really exciting experiments towards his PhD.

22 April 2021 Congratulations to Chris who has been awarded the John S. Turner Postgraduate Scholarship by the Botany Foundation. Very well deserved!

9 March 2021 Mike was interviewed by David Astle on ABC Radio Melbourne last night about our PNAS paper and the Pursuit article. He also spoke on BBC Radio York last week with Joanita Musisi.

5 March 2021 Our paper on a superoxide signal that adjusts the clock in the evening is published online in PNAS today. Congratulations to Ángela, Xiang and Dongjing! Mike wrote a summary for Pursuit.

4 March 2021 Welcome to Angus Orr and Runyu Xie who are both starting masters projects in the lab this week.

22 February 2021 Congratulations to Chris who passed his PhD confirmation today after making great progress in his first year.

17 November 2020 Congratulations to Yandong who has handed in his MSc thesis and gave his final project seminar today! Well done on your achievements in these difficult times.

27 August 2020 Mike presented some of the lab’s work on sugar signalling in a departmental webinar for Monash University today.

4 August 2020 Welcome to Lucas Reber, starting his MSc this week. His project will be investigating translational regulation of the circadian clock.

23 April 2020 Our split-luciferase publication is featured with the cover image on this week’s issue of Plant Journal.

17 March 2020 Welcome to Chris Buckley. He’s starting his PhD this week working on the circadian clock in wheat.

2 March 2020 Welcome to Josh Boyte, who’s starting his MSc in the lab this week. He’ll be looking into regulation of the circadian clock by ethylene.

25 November 2019 Mike and Xiang are at the ASPS conference at La Trobe this week. Xiang will be giving a talk on some of her PhD work.

1 November 2019 Ángela’s paper describing a tissue-specific split-luciferase system in Arabidopsis has been accepted in Plant Journal. Congratulations on the nice work!

11 October 2019 Welcome to Shiyu Bai, a masters student visiting from Reimo Zoschke’s lab in Germany. She will be with us for two months.

14 June 2019 Congratulations to Xiang, who has been awarded the 2019 Megan Klemm Postgraduate Award! Very well deserved.

19 May 2019 Xiang is off to Germany this week to visit our collaborators at the Max Planck Institute in Golm to do some exciting experiments for her project and then off to Paris for the International Conference on Plant Growth Substances. Have a great trip!

14 May 2019 Our invited review on plant circadian rhythms has been published in Annual Plant Reviews onlineA copy of this is available here.

7 May 2019 Congratulations to Xiang, who has been selected to speak at the International Conference on Plant Growth Substances in Paris!

28 February 2019 Welcome to Yandong Liu! He has joined the lab to start his Masters degree.

10 December 2018 Congratulations to Dongjing, who is graduating with a Master of Science (BioSciences) today.

7 December 2018 Congratulations to Mike for winning second prize for his talk at yesterday’s Postgraduate Symposium.

4 December 2018 Our invited article for Annual Plant Reviews Online has been accepted for publication today.

13 November 2018 The October issue of Plant Cell is out today including an editorial on our latest publication on a systemic zinc deficiency signal in Arabidopsis.

22 October 2018 Welcome to Gizem Kiyak! She started her PhD today on the Melbourne-Potsdam Joint PhD Program.

22 October 2018 Congratulations to Dongjing, who submitted his MSc thesis yesterday!

10 October 2018 Dongjing presented his final seminar on his masters project today and he nailed it. Well done!

5 October 2018 Congratulations to Mike Ting for passing confirmation today. He gave a great seminar on his progress so far on an exciting project. Well done!

1 October 2018 Dr Reimo Zoschke, our collaborator and Mike Ting’s co-supervisor, is visiting us this week from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. He’ll be giving a seminar on Thursday. Welcome, Reimo!

24 September 2018 Mike is in Sydney this week for ComBio. He’s presenting some unpublished work from the lab on sugar signalling in Arabidopsis.

28 August 2018 Our latest paper with Ute Kraemer and Scott Sinclair (Bochum) on long-distance signalling of zinc deficiency is now available online in Plant Cell.

3 August 2018 Our most recent paper in Current Biology is now available online. A long-running collaborative effort with research groups in the UK and Brazil, it shows that a SnRK1-regulated, energy-responsive transcription factor, bZIP63, controls entrainment of the circadian clock by sugars by regulating PRR7.

2 August 2018 Thanks to the Botany Foundation for the award of an ECR Seed Grant to support some of our work into sugar signalling and plant growth.

25 July 2018 Interested in Honours or Masters in 2019? Check out potential projects and get in touch with Mike.

25 July 2018 A paper with Scott Sinclair and Ute Krämer (Ruhr Uni Bochum) has been accepted by Plant Cell. It describes a transcriptomic approach to identify targets of systemic zinc deficiency signalling in Arabidopsis.

12 July 2018 Latest paper in Plant Physiology is now available online.

13 June 2018 Some lovely work with collaborators Tim Hearn and Alex Webb (University of Cambridge) has been accepted for publication in Plant Physiology. It describes a successful genetic screen for circadian mutants altered in responsiveness to nicotinamide.

31 May 2018 Current Biology have accepted our paper describing a molecular pathway for entrainment of the clock by sugars. It represents a mountain of work from multiple labs and is an exciting follow-up to our paper from a few years back.

10 May 2018 Congratulations to Xiang for passing her PhD confirmation today. Well done!

12 February 2018 Mike is in Canberra this week for Science meets Parliament.

26 November 2017 Last week we moved into our new labs! They’re looking great and set us up perfectly to do some exciting science.

2 November 2017 Our paper on a cell wall-derived signal that represses photomorphogenesis is published online today in Current Biology.

24 October 2017 Together with Dr Reimo Zoschke at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany, we have received some joint funding from UA and DAAD to help us out with a really exciting collaborative project on clocks and translation!

20 October 2017 Our recent research on ethylene and the clock has been featured on Pursuit.

2 October 2017 Mike is in Adelaide this week for ComBio. He was invited to give a talk on regulation of the circadian clock by sugars.

28 September 2017 The October issue of Plant Physiology is out today, including our paper on sucrose, ethylene and the circadian clock.

18 September 2017 After nearly 10 years of work, our paper reporting a role for cell wall signalling in photomorphogenesis with Ute Kraemer and Scott Sinclair (Ruhr University Bochum) has been accepted in Current Biology.

4 August 2017 Our Plant Physiology paper is now available online.

1 August 2017 Our paper with Alex Webb from the University of Cambridge on the role of GIGANTEA in effects of sugar on the circadian clock has been accepted for publication in Plant Physiology. It describes post-transcriptional effects of sucrose on GI protein and uncovers a previously unknown role for ethylene signalling in circadian regulation.

31 July 2017 Information about potential MSc projects in the Haydon lab for 2018 are available on the Stories tab of the webpage.

2 July 2017 Ángela is in Gothenburg, Sweden this week for the SEB meeting. She was selected to give an oral presentation about her work on our sourpuss mutants affected in transcriptional sugar responses in Arabidopsis.

26 June 2017 Aloha! Mike is in Honolulu this week for Plant Biology 2017. He is presenting some new work on the role of GI in regulation of the circadian clock by sugars.

1 June 2017 Welcome to Xiang Li! She has started her PhD in the lab today. Her project will use both genetic and chemical genetic tools to investigate plant sugar signalling in Arabidopsis.

3 March 2017 Welcome to Dongjing Deng, who started his MSc in the lab this week. He will be using chemical genetic tools to investigate transcriptional responses to sugars in Arabidopsis. Good luck, Dongjing!

16 November 2016 The Melbourne-Potsdam PhD Program is now in its second year. Applications are NOW OPEN for exciting plant science joint-PhD projects (including two in my lab) between the University of Melbourne and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany. Full details here. Deadline January 8 2017.

November 2016 Mike was asked for comment for an article in New Scientist on a very interesting paper published in Science Signalling about light piping into plant roots. (Mike also had lots of nice things to say about the paper, but these were not included in the article).

4 August 2016 Mike was quoted in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant about a nice paper from Prof Stacey Harmer (UC Davis) on circadian rhythms and heliotropism in sunflowers, published in Science(No, he doesn’t speak Dutch).

17 July 2016 Mike was interview by Sami Shah for RN Sunday Extra about plant circadian rhythms.

27 May 2016 Mike helped out with this piece written by Gillian Aeria in Pursuit on sunflowers tracking the sun.

1 March 2016 Mike officially started in the School of BioSciences at The University of Melbourne today.

12 February 2016 A methods chapter co-written with Alex Webb (University of Cambridge) has been published in a book called Environmental Responses in Plants as part of the Methods in Molecular Biology series.

1 October 2015 Research in the lab is now also funded by The Royal Society. New plate reader arriving in a few weeks!

24 August 2015 Welcome to Heather Eastmond, who started today in the lab as a Research Technician.

5 June 2015 Adam Binns, an undergraduate student at York, has been awarded a BBSRC Research Experience Placement to work for 10 weeks in the lab over the summer.

2 June 2015  Waheed is leaving us to start a PhD so we’re looking for a new Research Technician to join the lab to work on sugar signalling. Applications close on 21 June. Full details here.

29 April 2015 Our review on nutrient homeostasis and the clock was published today in Frontiers in Plant Science.

23 March 2015 Mike is in Saõ Paolo, Brazil this week to present at a FAPESP-British Council Workshop on ‘Environmental and metabolic control of plant growth and development.’

30 September 2014 Welcome to Ángela and Waheed, who started today in the lab. BBSRC-funded project now underway!

26 June 2014 Research Technician position is now open for applications, closing on 9 July. The post is available for up to 3 years, working on a BBSRC-funded project on sugar signalling in Arabidopsis. Full details here.

24 June 2014 Post-doctoral Research Associate position available in the lab now! This is a BBSRC-funded project, available for up to 3 years, to work on sugar signalling in Arabidopsis. Closing date for applications is 23 July, with a start-date in September. Full details here.

6 June 2014 We have been awarded a 3-year BBSRC grant to investigate sugar signalling in Arabidopsis. This means there will soon be an opportunity for a Postdoc and a Research Technician to join the lab. Watch this space for more details on how to apply.

23 April 2014 Mike wrote a blog for GARNet’s Celebrating Basic Plant Scienceseries, A sweet surprise: Revealing new roles for sugars in plants