Philip Benfey's Research goes to the Roots of Biology
By Dennis Meredith
October 25, 2002 | DURHAM, NC -- For Philip Benfey, new professor and chair of the biology department, the graceful words of the poet William Blake would no doubt hold special resonance:
"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
After all, Benfey, 49, and his fellow plant geneticists search for some of the basic truths in biology by exploring the tangled roots of a modest flowering plant called Arabidopsis thaliana. Benfey -- just arrived from New York University, where he was a professor of biology -- brings a sophisticated set of genetic techniques for figuring out how the plant generates an entire root system from a single cell. The discoveries, he said, reveal the secret genomic life of plants.
"One of the most interesting questions to me is how similar development might be in plants and animals," said Benfey. "When you think about it, there have only been two successful inventions of multicellular organisms -- plants and animals.
"And so comparing plant and animal development can lead us to insights into the basic logic of development," he said, paraphrasing an idea he credits to Caltech plant geneticist Elliott Meyerowitz.
While Arabidopsis might seem an obscure bit of foliage, the little plant is celebrated among geneticists as the laboratory mouse of the plant kingdom. A member of the mustard family that includes cabbage and radish, Arabidopsis is small, prolific and grows easily and quickly. What's more, plant geneticists received an enormous boon two years ago when an international consortium of scientists announced they had sequenced the entire Arabidopsis genome. Especially fascinating to Benfey and his colleagues about the Arabidopsis root is it gives them a scientific front row seat to the development of a living tissue.
"The root has a fairly complex structure, with lots of different cell types. And it all begins from a single cell," said Benfey. However, unlike the impossibly intricate convolutions and migrations of developing animal bodies, each new cell in the Arabidopsis root arises conveniently from its neighbor.
"When you look at the anatomy of the root, the origins of the entire structure are right there in front of you," said Benfey. "You can see all the stages of development. For genomics, this is an enormously simplifying feature."
Benfey and his colleagues have taken advantage of such root organization to discover extraordinary details of plant development. For example, they have manipulated and studied plant mutations with such evocative names as Scarecrow and Shortroot that have abnormal root development. Such studies have revealed much about the proteins that signal cells to differentiate into specialized root cells.
Most surprisingly, Benfey and his colleagues recently reported evidence that plant cells "talk" to one another in a way that animal cells don't. The instructions they send to their neighboring cells are proteins called "transcription factors" that switch on genes.
"People might say this has to be something that is highly specific to plants," said Benfey. "And I say that it's possible, but there is also an interesting history that phenomena discovered in one organism and thought to be unique to that organism turn out to be going on in others as well."
As biology department chair, Benfey aims to ensure that his colleagues have the tools they need to continue to make basic scientific advances.
"There are enormous challenges facing biology departments throughout the country," he said. "One is to acquire the very expensive equipment required to carry out advanced experiments in genomics and proteomics (the study of proteins produced by the cell's genes).
"And the other challenge is even more complicated; to forge partnerships with computationally trained scientists to cope with the huge amount of data that is coming from genomics."
According to Benfey, Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) constitutes "a major commitment on the part of the university to address these kinds of challenges, including developing technologies and a critical mass of people working in the area." In fact, the IGSP is one of the major reasons he came to Duke.
"I think that the way the IGSP is set up here is an excellent approach -- involving not only faculty scientists in arts and sciences and medicine, but also an integral policy and ethics component," he said.
More personally, Benfey and his family -- spouse Elisabeth and sons Julian, 9, and Sam, 11 -- are excited by the prospect of practically year-round outdoor activities. The boys love tennis, soccer and swimming; and an Outer Banks vacation this summer offered the chance to try wind surfing. And Elisabeth, whose education includes a law and a master of fine arts degree, will continue to pursue her interest in writing screenplays.
Besides rising through the academic ranks at NYU, Benfey's background includes an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Paris, and graduate studies with Lasker Award winner Philip Leder at Harvard, where he received a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology. He also did postdoctoral work in plant molecular biology and held the post of assistant professor at The Rockefeller University.
Research in his lab
http://www.biology.duke.edu/benfeylab/
|
