Renowned plant scientist to lead MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute

Rhee talks about her Michigan roots, and she describes how she “serendipitously” became passionate about plant science. “MSU is one of the best places to do plant research, if not the best. The people and the reputation attracted me. During the interview process, she was impressed with the MSU culture that included a graduate student, a postdoc, and an assistant faculty member on the search committee. I was really impressed with the early-career scientists. There’s a sense of excitement, passion, and interaction at MSU which was all super cool.” Rhee talks about the key issues in plant science. “Understanding how plants work is an important aspect of trying to come up with innovative solutions to many of today’s issues. That doesn’t mean just growing food better, but we can also think of plants as potential factories for sourcing materials and chemicals. We are entering an era of manufacturing from biology. It’s not just plants; microbes would play a big role. Having a better understanding of plants will help in so many ways. They are the biggest part of our ecosystem.” Sue describes the mission of the Plant Resilience Institute she’ll lead at MSU. “The mission is to be a premier institute for conducting outstanding plant research, especially in how plants can be resilient against adverse environmental conditions. We study plant resilience from many angles ranging from the ecosystem level down to single molecule molecular level.” Rhee is the founding director of The Arabidopsis Information Resource — one of the most heavily used online resources for plant scientists — and was instrumental in making the Gene Ontology system work for plants.       “It became one of the most popular databases used for research today. It’s probably the best-used plant resource today 20 years after its inception. “I think basic science will drive our future economy. A lot of the inventions and technologies we benefit from today have come from basic science. Basic science in plant biology was responsible for the green revolution that ended up saving hundreds of millions of people using tools like breeding. Today, plant scientists are using tools like plant genome engineering to be able to manipulate plants even more precisely. But knowing what to engineer and manipulate is where the basic science comes in. We have to understand how these organisms work and what controls the traits that we want to improve.  “That’s where basic science can really triumph. It allows us to understand how things work. And then we can figure out how to invent things. Without knowing how things work, we can’t invent. “One of the reasons I’m excited about MSU is because it’s a land grant university and there are thriving extension programs. Michigan has a lot of different types of growers, and there’s a lot of interesting industry. I’m very excited about plant science, but also about food and environmental justice and learning from my new MSU colleagues.” MSU Today airs Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 5 a.m. on WKAR News/Talk and Sundays at 8 p.m. on 760 WJR. Find “MSU Today with Russ White” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your shows.