Keiko Torii

Torii received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degree from the University of Tsukuba. She became a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology (formerly Botany), University of Washington in 1999, then became Associate Professor in 2005, Full Professor in 2009, and received the title of College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Distinguished Professor of Biology in 2011. Since 2011, Torii is an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Currently, she is Johnson & Johnson Centennial Chair in Plant Cell Biology at the Department of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Texas at Austin. Since 2013-2022, Torii ran her second lab at the Institute of Transformative Biomolecules (WPI-ITbM) at Nagoya University, Japan as an Oversea Principal Investigator. 

We study how positional cues govern tissue patterning and organ shape, and how lineage-specific stem cells are initiated, maintained or terminally differentiate during plant development. To address such fundamental questions in developmental biology, we use patterning and differentiation of stomata as a model. Stomata are small valves serving as an interface between plants and atmosphere, and their presence is essential for plant survival and our global environment. We revealed that intricate cell-cell communications mediated by small chemical signals influence the pattern of stem cell divisions and fate specification. We aim to elucidate how functional tissue patterns are generated using cross-disciplinary approaches. 

Together with organic chemists and molecular structural theoreticians, we are developing artificial and orthogonal ligand-receptor systems with novel activities to understand and manipulate signaling pathways controlling plant development.