Joshua Gendron, Ph.D.

Professor Gendron has 25 years of experience studying the genetic and molecular basis of how organisms react to environmental cues. He performed his Ph.D. in Dr. Zhi-Yong Wang’s lab at Stanford University/ Carnegie Institution for Science where he studied the brassinosteroid signaling pathway in Arabidopsis with an emphasis on discovering and mechanistically describing signaling pathway components. In addition, he described how brassinosteroids control growth and organogenesis. He performed his post-doctoral research in Dr. Steve Kay’s lab at the University of California, San Diego and University of Southern California where he investigated transcriptional networks in the circadian clock of Arabidopsis. He was funded by a Ruth L. Kirchstein NRTSA award from the NIH. Furthermore, he spent one year as a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Bennett at University of California, San Diego studying mammalian protein degradation mechanisms and learning mass spectrometry techniques and analysis.  At Yale University, he runs a research program that works on daily and seasonal timing mechanisms in plants. One focus area is the interplay of protein degradation and daily timing mechanisms where his lab uses reverse genetics and biochemistry in the model plant Arabidopsis. His work impacts our understanding of how plants sense and respond to environmental cues with the goal of making crops robust to rapidly changing climates. The work in the laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Research

The work in the Gendron lab focuses on discovering and understanding daily and seasonal timing mechanisms in plants. The lab uses protein engineering, mass spectrometry, and forward and reverse genetic approaches to investigate how plants determine the time of day or the season to control downstream biological processes such as metabolism, cell growth, and cell differentiation.

Honors and Awards

2018 Poorvu Prize from the Poorvu Family Fund for Teaching in Yale College