Impact
Rhee Lab: Impact by the Numbers
31,623 citations
h-index of 62
Gene Ontology Consortium
mentioned in
268,785+ papers
Arabidopsis Information Resource
mentioned in
13,775+ papers
557 children engaged
in plant science outreach
$173,853,974
Cumulative Federal Funding
192 people trained in plant biology
including:
95 who went on to pursue a PhD or MD
57 senior positions in industry, government, & academia
57 faculty
12 industry leaders
114 women
1,817 members of the general public
engaged in science film screenings, panel discussions, and science outreach
Rhee Lab: Impact on Society
The world’s population growth, compounded by climate change, demands more agricultural output and new crop breeds that are adapted to suboptimal conditions and more resilient to biotic and abiotic challenges. Many traits that improve agricultural productivity have been underpinned by plant metabolism. Marker-assisted breeding, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology have fueled the development of improved crop metabolic traits. For example, micronutrients such as provitamin A and folates have been successfully bred and engineered in staple crops. In addition, transporter engineering has led to increased starch content and tuber yield in potato and rice blight resistance in rice. These examples underscore the importance of plant metabolism in improving crops.
Plant research’s vital contribution to advancing science, technology and engineering in our society is undisputed, including seminal advances in biological energy capture and conversion, immunity, circadian clock function, hormone action and mechanisms of epigenetics. Today’s innovations in systems biology, sensors and biosensors, data science and artificial intelligence, gene editing, precision breeding and microbiome position us to make unprecedented discoveries in plant science.