Julia Bailey-Serres


Julia Bailey-Serres is professor of genetics, director of the Center for Plant Cell Biology, and a member of the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology at the University of California, Riverside. Her accomplishments include the pioneering of methods for profiling the "translatomes" of discrete cell-types of plants and identification of a homeostatic sensor of oxygen deprivation in plants.

Education

Bailey-Serres received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Utah in 1981 and earned a Ph.D. with a thesis entitled "Mitochondrial genome rearrangements in sorghum" from University of Edinburgh in 1986. She was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley under Michael Freeling.

Career

Research

Bailey-Serres and her researchers are investigating the molecular and physiological processes that enable plants to tolerate or survive stresses such as flooding or drought. In general, her areas of research include:
In 2003, Bailey-Serres joined a team of geneticists including Pamela Ronald of the University of California, Davis and rice breeder David Mackill in the search for the Sub1A gene that allows rice to survive complete submergence under water. The gene is not present in all rice plants, but may be introduced through breeding.
As a result of this research, scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) created the flood-tolerant rice variety Swarna-Sub1. More than 10 million farmers are growing the rice in their flood-prone fields.

Other activities

From 2005 to 2011, Bailey-Serres was the director of the National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Trainee Program. The program trained 23 Ph.D. students versed in cell biology, chemistry, computational sciences and engineering, in advanced chemical genomics.
She is a member of the editorial board for PNAS.

Awards and honors