Making Mutants

Bethany Zolman, Assistant Professor, Biology, UM St. Louis

While most people rip weeds from their front yards without a second thought, Bethany Zolman spends her time studying one virtually unknown weed, Arabidopsis thaliana. The assistant professor of biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis finds that this plant serves as a perfect model organism for research because it grows quickly, is easily manipulated, and is comparable to the systems of crop plants.