Tentative title of the lecture:

Expanding diversity of triacylglycerol assembly pathways and their control to produce designer plant oils
 

Professor Philip Bates started in the field of plant lipids as a graduate student at Michigan State University working with Professor John Ohlrogge and Dr. Mike Pollard. At MSU Dr. Bates discovered his passion for elucidation of lipid metabolic pathways through isotopic tracing of metabolism. After graduating with a PhD in Biochemistry, Dr. Bates conducted postdoctoral research at Washington State University with Professor John Browse investigating metabolic bottlenecks in plants engineered to accumulate unusual fatty acids. In 2013 Dr. Bates established his own lab at the University of Southern Mississippi, and in 2014 ISPL recognized Dr. Bates’ contributions with the Paul Stumpf Award. Dr. Bates transferred his lab to the Institute of Biological Chemistry at Washington State University in 2018. The current focus of his lab is to identify mechanisms that differentially control acyl flux through various branches of lipid metabolic network in crop and wild-type species, and to use that knowledge for rational control of plant oil production. Recent work has discovered a new pathway of seed oil assembly, coined triacylglycerol remodeling, that is key to controlling the final seed oil composition of various oilseed plants and is a new tool for designer oilseed production.