Current Research
Mentor: John McCutcheon, PhD
Plants are essential for life on Earth. One of the most important features of plant cells is the chloroplast, which originated from the capture of a cyanobacterium approximately a billion years ago and facilitates the process of photosynthesis. Jessica Warren is investigating how the chloroplast’s bacterial structures and genetic features have been integrated into modern plant cells, and how this incorporation controls plant development and physiology.