Dr Jie Cheng

Plant development is characterised by iterative growth. Apical meristems reiteratively produce leaves, bracts or axillary buds. Leaves can in turn produce outgrowths such as serrations, ligules or leaflets.

By using maize (monocot) and arabidopsis (eudicot) as model species, Jie aims to utilise live-imaging, genetics and computational modelling to study the development and evolution of iterative structures (e.g. serration, ligule and spike).