Meet the Editor: Dr. Shelley Hepworth

Canadian Science Publishing is proud to welcome Dr. Shelley Hepworth, who joins us as the new co-Editor-in-Chief of Botany. A distinguished developmental plant biologist and full professor in the Department of Biology and Institute of Biochemistry at Carleton University, Dr. Hepworth leads an internationally connected research program committed to unraveling the genetic foundations of plant architecture.

Join us in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Hepworth as we explore her research career and vision for the future of Botany in this Q&A.

Congratulations, Dr. Hepworth, on becoming co-Editor-in-Chief of Botany! I wonder if we could start by talking about your scientific interests. How did you become interested in plant development?

Thank you! That’s a great question. I have to credit my dad, who took our family on long walks through forests and bogs as kids. He was an avid photographer. Every few yards, he’d spot something with a long Latin name and we’d stop to take a picture. This was way before digital cameras! He’d get out his tripod, fiddle to position it in just the right place, and then we’d wait for the wind to stop blowing or a cloud to pass so the shot was perfect. To pass the time, we explored! I studied a lot of plants that way.

My interest in plants surfaced years later. I didn’t consider them until the end of my Ph.D. I had been studying a simple developmental program in budding yeast that coordinated meiosis with spore development. The yeast that I was studying, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was the first eukaryotic organism to have its genome sequenced. It had a dramatic impact on the way we did research. A genome project for the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, was underway. Arabidopsis researchers were using all the same genetic tools developed in yeast, and I could use these tools to study development in plants. I decided to study flowering time. It was at that moment that I realized the great influence of my father on my scientific journey.

Your lab focuses on research relating to plant architecture; what is plant architecture, and why is understanding it important to agriculture?

Plant architecture refers to the shape of organs like leaves, branches, and flowers and how they are arranged in space. These features are significant to agriculture because crop productivity depends on an optimal mix of traits like plant height, flowering time, the number of branches, and the number of fruits per branch. Knowing how these traits are controlled can speed up the breeding process.

One of the areas you investigate is abscission, the process of organ detachment in plants. Can you share some insights into how boundary genes control abscission and how this knowledge can benefit agriculture?

Plants shed their organs through a process called abscission. Abscission zones form at organ boundaries—cellular junctions where organs are attached to the plant. Abscission has been a major area of research for a long time. Knowing how to control when and where abscission takes place is relevant to agriculture since the leaves, fruits, and seeds that can be shed are often harvested for food. Controlling this process at the genetic level is an important goal.

Our collective work sheds light on abscission as a specialized developmental program that takes place at organ boundaries. We’ve shown that boundary genes play an essential role at multiple steps in the abscission process—by initiating abscission zones, differentiating their layered structure, and contributing to the production of enzymes that dissolve the connections between cells so organs are shed without damaging the plant body. The mechanisms we identify are used in crop breeding to improve their abscission characteristics.

Plants have an active immune system to fight pathogens. Could you elaborate on the connection between boundary genes and immunity?

It’s an interesting connection. Each cell in the plant body can mount an immune response, but there is a trade-off: cells can grow or defend but they can’t do both at the same time. Cells in organ boundaries tend to be smaller, with a lower growth rate than neighboring cells. We were just talking about abscission as a process that occurs at boundaries. As the organ is being shed, there is a built-in immune response in the abscission zone that protects exposed cells at the cut site from infection while the area is sealing. Interestingly, some of the players involved in controlling growth and development at organ boundaries and in the process of abscission also play a generalized role in plant innate immunity. In particular, we’re studying a group of BTB-ankyrin transcriptional regulators that function in both development and defence.

Sustainability is a critical concern in modern agriculture. How does your research contribute to more sustainable practices, especially in the context of a changing climate and the need for increased food production?

We study the growth and development of plants using a model plant called Arabidopsis thaliana. It was the first plant to have its genome sequenced and it’s used by researchers around the world. Even though it has no commercial value, as a member of the mustard family, it’s closely related to food crops like cabbage and broccoli and oil-seed crops like canola. Our research is important because basic knowledge about plants offers intelligent solutions to agricultural problems related to climate change or increased food production. Controlling pod shatter in canola is a great example. Canola shatter refers to the splitting and loss of seeds from the seed pod or “silique.” Preharvest seed loss has been a big problem ever since the crop was introduced. After understanding how the pod shatter process was regulated in Arabidopsis plants, researchers directly targeted the equivalent genes in canola plants to produce a shatter-resistant variety now planted in fields everywhere. Similarly, our research on abscission has broader implications. In many crops, chemical defoliants or abscission blockers are sprayed to manage abscission, in some cases posing risks to the environment or human health. If plants can be engineered for more desirable traits at a genetic level, crop productivity can be managed more sustainably. Gene editing technology is rapidly advancing, making it possible to alter specific candidate genes in crop varieties for the first time in history. It’s a very exciting time to be a plant biologist!

Your lab has done some impressive work with government and industry partners (e.g., the National Research Council Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), both within Canada and internationally. What does this collaborative process look like?

Research collaborations are all about sharing expertise and resources. I’m a big fan. By combining our scientific and technical resources, we maximize the impact of our work. Students particularly benefit from the guidance of external experts on their projects. Most of our collaborators serve on student thesis advisory committees or co-supervise research projects. I send my students out to get advice all the time, sometime involving travel for short lab exchanges. This direct engagement also enables students to expand their professional networks.

As a professor at Carleton University you not only conduct research, but also mentor students. Could you share some insights into your experience as an educator and how you integrate teaching and research in your role at the university?

Teaching and mentoring are really rewarding aspects of my work. I love it when undergraduate students learn about something in the classroom and then experience it in action by volunteering or by contributing to a research project. A few of my undergraduate students started projects in their first year and continued right through to their thesis project, presenting their work along the way and publishing it at the end. Research is such a good teacher. It teaches technical skills, planning and critical thinking, teamwork, and the thrill of discovery. It’s much the same with graduate students, except their projects are more complex and I give them more freedom. They also learn how to teach by co-supervising undergrads. I take more of a supporting role, providing advice and structure, connecting them with resources, and helping them develop good science communication skills. I know I’ve done my job right when I start to learn things from my students—a new skill, a new fact, or a new way of doing things. That’s an exciting part.

We’re extremely excited to welcome you to Canadian Science Publishing as a co-Editor-in-Chief. Why did you decide to join the team at Botany? What are you most excited about working on with the journal?

Botany is a journal with a uniquely Canadian history. We partner with the Canadian Botanical Association, the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists, and the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution. Many of the best academic journals in the world collaborate with societies to bring the best research to the scientific community. Deepening those ties is a huge opportunity for Botany—one that I’m excited to work on with the journal.