A Short History of Plant Science

Following discussions I had with students (from undergrad to PhD-student level), I noticed that most young researchers were never taught anything about the historical context of our work. Context, however, still matters today. For example, many students are not aware of what the difference between the Arabidopsis lines Col-0, Col-1 and Landsberg is. Or why we are using the CaMV 35s promoter all the time, even though it is actually quite problematic to work with. For this reason, I have started to write ‘Short History’ articles on such aspects of plant science. To date, four chapters have been published:

Chapter 1 (2018): A short history of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. Columbia-0
PeerJ Prepr.: 1–7. http://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26931

Chapter 2 (2018): A short history of the CaMV 35S Promoter
PeerJ Prepr.: 1–16. http://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27096

Chapter 3 (2019): A short history of Plant Transformation
PeerJ Prepr.: 1–28. https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27556

Chapter 4 (2020): A short history of Vernalization
Zenodo: 1–28 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3660691

 

Some Online Feedback on the Short History articles (click to enlarge):