Thrilled to share our new work led by former student Soyoung Jung, w/ Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center (WCIC)! By engineering soybeans as a chassis for betalains (natural red dyes), we opened the door for a cost-effective, sustainable replacement for synthetic Red #3 & #40. 🔗 tinyurl.com/3zhbt3wx

A huge thanks to everyone who attended and supported the Phytochemical Society of North America (PSNA) meeting in Madison last week! We shared exciting science through oral/poster presentations and had stimulating discussions throughout. See you next summer 2027 at Cornell!

www.nature.com/articles/d41... featuring Sarah O'Connor

Botanical mystery solved: how plants make a crucial malaria drug

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 18 March 2026

nature.com

We are excited to announce that PMN is a sponsor at this year's Annual Meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America (PSNA)! You can meet us during PSNA at our booth where we invite researchers to contribute their enzyme data to PMN's database! For more info: go.wisc.edu/PSNA2026

We are excited to have Mohan in Maeda lab and PMN team! Mohan brings expertise in plant enzyme characterization and aims to define multi-substrate specificity of aminotransferase family enzymes across the plant kingdom. Welcome!

Plant Metabolic Network 🌱@plantmetabolism.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Say hello to the newest member of PMN! Mohan Varghese, Ph.D is joining the PMN team as a Postdoctoral Researcher with The Maeda Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison! Join us in welcoming Mohan! To view the full PMN team, visit: plantcyc.org/people/ @hiroshi-maeda.bsky.social

We are honored to be named a recipient of the 2025 WARF Innovation Award at the 100th anniversary of WARF! Our innovation of red soybean hyper-accumulating betalain natural pigments became possible through the partnership between UW's Botany research and the Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center (WCIC).

WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation)@warfnews.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Congratulations to the 2025 WARF Innovation Award winners: ✳️ Soybeans engineered for color & brain health ✳️ Ecofriendly herbicide offers targeted weed control #WisconsinInnovates

Thanks for featuring our article with the beautiful “aromatic” cover art!

Trends in Biochemical Sciences@cp-trendsbiochem.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📢 Our December issue is now online! Access the full issue 👉 www.cell.com/trends/bioch... 🎨 The cover brings warm, summertime vibes ☀️ and highlights a Feature Review on #AromaticAminoAcid biosynthesis in 🌱 from Jorge El-Azaz and @hiroshi-maeda.bsky.social. Cover art credit to Tae Park. (1/n)

Nitrogen is vital for plant growth, yet its regulation is poorly understood. Jacob Kunkel and Jorge El-Azaz from our lab discovered that knocking out ACR11 boosts N metabolism but makes Arabidopsis hyper-sensitive to N. Understanding ACR11 could improve crop N use efficiency. tinyurl.com/6h298faa

Thank you Dinesh Christendat for hosting the wonderful visit! I really enjoyed meeting with many students and faculty and learning about exciting plant science happening in Toronto!

Cell & Systems Biology (CSB)@uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Join us today (Nov 14) as we welcome Prof Hiroshi Maeda @hiroshi-maeda.bsky.social for his talk on “Tackling the complexity of plant metabolic network from Arabidopsis to Caryophyllales”. See you at 11am in RW432!

The Phytochemical Society of North America (PSNA) is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award and applications for the TPJ-PSNA Early Career Award! The deadline is January 30, 2026. Find the guideline at: www.psna-online.org/awards #PSNA #PlantMetabolism

Our latest Plant Physiology paper identified four mutations in DAHP synthases that act synergistically to supercharge the shikimate pathway in BOP grasses, boosting aromatic chemical production. Read more at 🔗 tinyurl.com/yfvpvzm5 We greatly appreciate the support from @NSF PGRP and MCB!

Our new study in Nature Plants maps how "multi-tasking" enzymes in plants transfer nitrogen, a key step toward improving crop N use efficiency. 🌱 Big thanks to our collaborators from Max Planck, Hokkaido Univ, & MSU, and for support from @NSF and @DOE. Learn more: rdcu.be/eFOFN #PlantMetabolism

Mapping multi-substrate specificity of Arabidopsis aminotransferases

Nature Plants - Systematic characterization of Arabidopsis aminotransferase family enzymes uncovered many previously unrecognized activities and revealed their multi-substrate specificity, aspects...

rdcu.be

Save the date! The 65th Phytochemical Society of North America (PSNA) meeting is coming to Madison, WI, from June 15-19, 2026. Join us at the Memorial Union for exciting science, supportive community, and Wisconsin's finest! More info at psna-online.org #PSNA2026 #Phytochemistry #PlantScience

Plants make thousands of #phenolic compounds—like morphine, auxin, anthocyanins, lignin—from the #ShikimatePathway. In our #TIBS review, Jorge El-Azaz discussed how multiple enzyme isoforms fine tune the production of diverse aromatic natural products in plants. #Metabolism #SyntheticBiology

𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 📚 Curious how AI + multi-omics are revolutionizing plant metabolism research? 🌱 Check out Dang´s lab @plantbiocore.bsky.social, nice review on unlocking nature’s chemistry for next-gen bioproduction #plantscience #AI @ubcpress.bsky.social 📖 doi.org/10.1111/tpj.70288

From data to discovery: leveraging big data in plant natural products biosynthesis research

Decoding complex plant metabolic pathways remains a significant scientific challenge. This review highlights how the integration of increasingly abundant big data from multi-omics technologies with a....

doi.org

Excited to see this collaboration project out in @theplantcell.bsky.social ; Maize big embryo 6 reveals roles of plastidial and cytosolic prephenate aminotransferases in seed and plant development academic.oup.com/plcell/artic...

Maize big embryo 6 reveals roles of plastidial and cytosolic prephenate aminotransferases in seed and plant development

Plastidial and cytosolic pathways of aromatic amino acid biosynthesis have partially redundant roles in amino acid homeostasis and growth of seed and plant

academic.oup.com