Professor Keiko Torii is a professor at the Molecular Biosciences Department. She is currently holding Johnson & Johnson Centennial Chair of Plant Cell Biology, and she is also Investigator of Howard Hughes Medial Institute. Dr. Torii's work has implications for the medical and agricultural fields, as well as improving plant resiliency in the face of climate change. Dr. Torii studies functional tissue patterning, stem cell maintenance and differentiation and how plant cells determine function. Much of Torii’s recent work has centered on plant stomata, the mouth-like structure on the surfaces of land plants that allow for gas and moisture to be exchanged with the atmosphere. How the stomata operate, and how different plant cells communicate with each other about which ones will become stomata has been an important question in her work. She is interested in collaboration and integrative approaches across fields of medicine, molecular biology, chemistry/chemical biology, biochemistry, genomics/epigenomics, and plant biology.

For recent Dr. Torii's talk (lectured for undergrads in UK), see the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOqrFBbx41I