Gordon Research Conference Award Winners Sponsored by ASPB

	Michael Mazourek I grew up in a small town in upstate NY and from the beginning I shared my dad's curiosity for how things worked. My mother got me started in gardening, but mostly I just liked growing peppers. Since I was fond of taking things apart (and sometimes putting them back together), I assumed I would have a career in engineering, until my hard-working high school AP biology teacher, Jack Balcome, showed me how biology could also be used to study functions and mechanisms in an organism. While pursuing a degree in biochemistry at Ithaca College, I was fortunate to be mentored by Vicki Cameron in yeast molecular biology. Her undergraduate research training was tremendous and the timing couldn't have been better. I accompanied her to the landmark meetings where the yeast research community revealed they had sequenced the full genome and the incredible development of genomic resources. My path changed yet again when Michael Axtell showed me that similar investments were being made in plants and plants were the great unexplored frontier in biochemistry and metabolism. By chance, I joined Molly Jahn's lab at Cornell University shortly before she started a new research program in capsaicinoid biosynthesis in hot peppers and I was lucky to work with a true visionary for my graduate degree. The most rewarding parts of science involve working as a team in a supportive community. The Graduate Research Seminar and Gordon Research Conference on Plant Metabolic Engineering are unique opportunities to meet and get to know other scientists as friends, collaborators and mentors and it has been a joy for me to become part of that community.
	Lucille Pourcel Working in biology has always been an obvious future for me, since I was a child. I grew up in a family of scientists, and I could always feel the passion of my parents for their work. I appreciate them so much for what I am doing now in my life. I chose the plant biology field because plants are an exciting group of organisms that conquered the entire planet by their capacity to adapt in all environmental conditions. I studied at the University of Sciences Paris XI in France, and took my doctorate at the National Institute of Agronomic Research, in Loïc Lepiniec's lab. I enjoyed my time there very much, including my project on flavonoid metabolism in Arabidopsis seeds, and the fulfilling scientific discussions I shared with both my advisors. Working on flavonoids made me realize that I was interested in investigating plant metabolic pathways. I accepted a postdoc position in Prof. Erich Grotewold's lab at The Ohio State University, where Erich gave me the opportunity to be part of the GRS as an organizer and a speaker, and to attend to the GRC. These two meetings were a wonderful opportunity for me to meet researchers working on the area of plant metabolism, and learn about the numerous tools used in research to understand and improve these pathways from an engineering point of view. I really enjoyed the spirit of the Gordon Conference, where people find time to deeply discuss and exchange their points of view on common topics, and learn new material. It was really motivating, and I look forward to attending other Gordon conferences whenever I can.
	Ratnakar Vallabhaneni As an undergraduate in microbiology and biochemistry at PB Siddhartha College of Arts and Sciences, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India I came to realize the widespread applications of biotechnology in both academia and industry. My interest to make these applications available for problem-solving in agriculture was fostered by the importance of agriculture to the Indian economy and the prevalence of agricultural pursuits within my family. Since this time, my pursuits have been guided by an ambition to learn and develop the research techniques necessary to find solutions to agricultural problems through biotechnology. While pursuing a Master of Science in Biotechnology at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, through research experience and course work, I gained insight into the operations of a large multi-national company and developed an understanding of the important relationship between science and industry. Moreover, Professional associations has been a great way to gain knowledge about industry, networking with researchers in related field, and keep on top of current research both in academia and industry. Currently, I am pursuing my doctoral degree at the City University of New York in plant sciences with Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel at Lehman College, CUNY. The objective of our research focuses on developing maize with elevated levels of ?-carotene. The endosperm of staple food crops, such as maize, rice and wheat, are low in provitamin A as compared with non-provitamin A carotenoids. Metabolic engineering of these staple cereal crops for enhanced provitamin A carotenoids provides an important source of essential provitamin A carotenoids for people with few alternative sources. This research has provided me with the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of biotechnology research, make a contribution to the research field and benefit humankind.
	Walter Verweij I am born and raised in a small village close to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During my life, studying was never my favorite way to spent time. Doing sports such as speed skating and windsurfing, however, were the things I preferred to do. After high school I went to a university of professional education in Utrecht where I became enthusiastic about working in a laboratory. In order to get my degree I went, for one year, to Portland, Oregon, USA to the lab of prof.dr. J.Crosa, who is working on iron uptake in Vibrio anguillarum. I learned a lot and it was a very good experience to spend such a long period of time in a foreign country. After receiving good grades I returned back to the Netherlands and found a job in the lab of dr. R.Koes and dr. F.Quattrocchio at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in which Petunia hybrida is the plant used as model system. Our major interests are flower development (petunia develops differently than Arabidopsis) and flower pigmentation. Because petunia flowers vary in color tremendously (white, red, pink, blue and everything in between), it is a perfect system to study pathway(s) that are involved in determining the final flower colour. Since anthocyanins behave as natural indicators, a low vacuolar pH results in red flowers and a high pH in blue flowers. Since nothing was known about the acidification of vacuoles in petunia petal cells, my goal of my PhD period was to identify genes involved in this process. Now, a few years later, and just started my post-doc in the same lab, many genes have been cloned and we know lots more about the regulation and mechanism of this process. In the GRS and, surprisingly, also in the GRC I presented my latest results. It was the first time I attended a Gordon conference and during this meeting it became comprehensible to me why doing plant research is essential. For instance, knowing how to make tastier beer, how to produce bio fuels in an efficient way or how to improve food crop quality and yield for developing countries is important these days. Besides the presentations we had enough free time to meet and talk to the scientific community, which gave me confidence to continue working in this field and, maybe, in the near future, it is possible for everyone to buy blue coloured flowers (such as roses and carnation) what would be unachievable by traditional breeding. Figure legend: A) Flower phenotype of a pH wild type. B) Flower phenotype of a mutant, which is mutated in the pathway leading to the acidification of the vacuole.