ATRIUM Activities

The Annual Arabidopsis Minisymposium is a one-day meeting held on our campus every Spring. The 6th Annual Arabidopsis Minisymposium will be held in Spring 2005. The Minisymposium brings together local plant scientists, many of whom work with Arabidopsis. Participants include researchers from nearby universities (e.g., University of Maryland, University of Delaware, Virginia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, Howard University, Roanoke University, James Madison University), research institutes (e.g, The Institute for Genomic Research, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute), private industry (e.g., Dupont, Rohm and Haas) and government agencies (e.g, U.S. Department of Agriculture). All interested undergraduate and graduate students are especially invited to attend and are encouraged to give presentations. To be added to our mailing list, please contact Steve Mount ( smount@umd.edu).

ATRIUM members meet monthly to discuss our ongoing research andnew technical developments in the rapidly advancing world of Arabidopsismolecular genetics. At each meeting, one lab gives a group presentation in the form of short talks by the graduate students, undergraduates, research assistants and/or postdocs from that lab. The range of topics include flower development, signal transduction, transcription, pre-mRNA splicing, population genetics and viral transmission and infection. For more information, contact Caren Chang (cc203@umail.umd.edu ). ATRIUM activities are supported by the Dept. of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics in the College of Life Sciences and the Center for Biosystems Research at University of Maryland.

Some ATRIUM members participate in GEMS (Genetics with Eukaryotic Model Systems), a monthly multi-lab meeting devoted to the use of genetic approaches in Drosophila, C. elegans or Arabidopsisto study problems in development, signal transduction and gene expression. The group includes researchers affiliated with the Departments of Biology and Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics in the College of Life Sciences and the Centers for Biosystems Research (CBR) and Advanced Research in Biotechnology (CARB) in the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, and nearby Howard University. For more information, contact Steve Mount ( smount@wam.umd.edu).

The following relevant courses are offered by ATRIUM and other plant faculty through the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics:

BSCI 410 Molecular Genetics (3 credits)
BSCI 411 Plant Genetics and Molecular Biology (3)
BSCI 415 Plant Biotechnology (2)
BSCI 428S Bioinformatics in Genomics and Evolution (3)
BSCI 435 Plant Biochemistry (3)
BSCI 442 Plant Physiology (4)
BSCI 490 Plant Structure (4)
MOCB 630 Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics (3)
MICB 688A Research Experiences (3)
MICB 688G Genetic Approaches to Cell and Developmental Biology (3)
MICB 688K Photosynthetic Life (3)
PBIO 698 Graduate Seminar in Plant Biology (1)
PBIO 699 Special Problems in Plant Biology (1-3)
PBIO 699K Molecular Systematics (3)
PBIO 705 Molecular Genetics of Plants (3)
PBIO 710 Plant Membrane Physiology (2)
PBIO 725 Plant Growth and Development (2)
PBIO 780 Plant Virology (2)
PBIO 799 Masters Thesis Research (1-6)
PBIO 899 Doctoral Dissertation Research (1-8)

Members of ATRIUM (PI: Heven Sze; Co-PIs: Caren Chang, Elena del Campillo, Steve Mount, Zhongchi Liu) have received funding from both NSF and the University of Maryland for a new Plant Growth Facility for Arabidopsis research. This facility will provide 300 sq. ft. of additional environmentally controlled growth area to the Environmental Bay of HJ Patterson Hall by the end of 2002.