Dave Jackson
Dave Jackson is a Professor of Plant Genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA. His lab finds and studies the genes that control plant growth and architecture. They have discovered genes that control stem cell proliferation, including a heterotrimeric G protein that interacts with a completely different class of receptors than in animals, and other master regulators of development and cell to cell signaling. His work has also demonstrated that weak mutations in developmental genes can enhance seed production in maize, leading to potential crop yield increases, and he is now using genome editing to improve crop yield traits. His lab also develops maize genomics tools and is characterizing global gene expression networks controlling development. Since 2015, he has also served as a Chang Jiang Visiting Professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, China.