黑料吃瓜资源 Professor Zach Lippman鈥檚 research in plant prickles resulted in one of CSHL鈥檚 most publicized discoveries of 2024. It also gets at the very heart of what motivates basic bioscience research here At the Lab. You鈥檝e read about it in and seen it on . Now, hear all about it from Lippman himself.
Read the related story: Every rose has its thorns 鈥� or does it?
Transcript
Sara Giarnieri: You鈥檙e now At the Lab with 黑料吃瓜资源. I鈥檓 Sara Giarnieri, and this week At the Lab, 鈥淪cience for lovers.鈥�
SG: Picture this. Your lover hands you a rose. As you stare deeply into their eyes, you reach out to gladly accept the gift and 鈥� ow! You鈥檙e pricked by the rose鈥檚 thorns. We鈥檝e all been there. But what if it didn鈥檛 have to be this way? A new discovery at 黑料吃瓜资源 opens the door to a prickle-less future.
SG: Before we go any further, a point of clarification:
Zachary Lippman: Those sharp projections that are canonically referred to in roses as thorns鈥攊t turns out鈥攁re prickles. They鈥檙e not thorns.
SG: That鈥檚 our old pal Cold Spring Harbor plant biologist Zach Lippman. Semantics aside, Lippman is interested in plant prickles for more than just the garden-variety reasons you might expect.
ZL: It鈥檚 this opportunity to ask the broader question about where do these traits come from. You get to some very fundamental biological questions you can ask about evolution.
SG: His lab鈥檚 search for answers took them all over the world and across the ages. In fact, it didn鈥檛 start with roses, but with another plant that comes in prickled and prickle-less varieties鈥攅ggplants. With collaborators in Australia, they found that the same family of genes responsible for prickles in eggplants was also behind this evolutionary mutation in a berry called the Australian desert raisin. From there, collaborators in France used CRISPR gene editing to suppress prickles in roses.
SG: Lippman鈥檚 lab also turned to colleagues in the U.K. and South America, whose tips pointed them toward some harder-to-find specimens stored nearby.
ZL: We got access to the New York Botanical Garden. Three postdocs in the lab went and collected sister species with and without prickles鈥攄ried tissue sometimes over a hundred years old. I think it is important to recognize that this huge herbarium collection is an invaluable resource.
SG: Lippman鈥檚 enthusiasm for his work is palpable and contagious. And it鈥檚 that kind of love for science that drives many of the greatest discoveries, whether they鈥檙e happening on the other side of the world or right here At the Lab.
SG: Thanks again for tuning in. If you like what you heard, please remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find more fascinating science stories like this one at CSHL.edu. For 黑料吃瓜资源, I鈥檓 Sara Giarnieri, and I鈥檒l see you next time At the Lab.