Professor Dr Ottoline Leyser

Research Priorities: Shoot branching, shoot meristems, environmental adaptation, plant growth, plant hormones
Dame Ottoline Leyser is a British plant biologist. Her core research focuses on the genetics of plant development and the role of plant hormones in integrating endogenous developmental factors with those from the environment. In particular, her research uses shoot branching as a model to understand the role of plant hormones in developmental plasticity.
Plants continuously adapt their structure to the environment in which they grow. A good example of this is the regulation of shoot branching. Axillary meristems, which are established in the axil of each leaf base, can either remain inactive as buds or become active and form a branch. Whether or not an axillary meristem becomes active involves the integration of many environmental, physiological, and developmental factors. Increasingly, the evidence indicates that the regulatory system for bud activity centres on the self-organising properties of the transport network of the plant hormone auxin.
Ottoline Leyser’s research seeks to shed light on this network and how it functions. She combines molecular-biological, physiological, and quantitative genetic approaches with computer models to better understand how shoot branching patterns respond to the environment.