Computational Biology

Wolffia, also known as duckweed, is the fastest-growing plant known, but the genetics underlying this strange little plant’s success have long been unknown to scientists. Now, a multi-investigator effort led by Todd Michael, research professor and first author of the paper, along with coauthor and Professor Joseph Ecker, reports new findings about the plant’s genome that explain how it is able to grow so fast. The research will help scientists to understand how plants put down roots and defend themselves from pests, with implications for developing plants that are optimized to increase carbon storage to help address climate change.

Deep learning is a potential tool for scientists to glean more detail from low-resolution images in microscopy, but it’s often difficult to gather enough initial data to train computers in the process. A new method developed by Salk Assistant Research Professor Uri Manor, director of Salk’s Waitt Advance Biophotonics Core Facility, and first author Linjing Fang, Salk image analysis specialist, could make the technology more accessible by taking high-resolution images and artificially degrading them. The method could make it significantly easier for scientists to get detailed images of cells that have previously been difficult to observe, as well as allow scientists to capture high-resolution images even if they don’t have access to powerful microscopes.