Emery Lab

In Discovery of Cytokinins.....

About Us

Dr. Emery is one of the world’s leading experts in the study of plant hormones. In particular, he works on a family of hormones, the cytokinins, which are notoriously difficult to analyze and which are potent regulators of plant development even when present at extremely low concentrations. Prior to coming to Trent in 2000, he completed post-doctoral research in Australia working on hormonal control of fruit set and seed development in chickpea and lupin and in France examining nitrogen and carbon metabolism in field peas. In his work with legumes he is studying how the plants biochemically pull themselves together as a means of determining how to create bigger, more stable yields. The end users of research findings would be breeders of plants who he could give direction for making better varieties of each plant.

Lab News

July, 2020 - Our article "Cytokinin Production by the Rice Blast Fungus Is a Pivotal Requirement for Full Virulence" is among the top 10% most cited PLOS Pathogens papers published in 2016!
CITED 46 TIMES as of July 2020

July, 2020 - Huge congrats to our student, Julia Hubert for the amazing presentation she gave at the 48th Southern Ontario Undergraduate Virtual Chemistry Conference in Toronto! You can watch it here if you want to learn what cytokinins are doing in human parasite, Giardia intestinalis!

May, 2020 - "Can we grow plants on Mars?" Our student, Aaron Dain has the answer. Read his story on RAOG blog.

April, 2020 - "Science is not cancelled! There is so MUSH-room for learning!" Read about our MSc student, Nourhene Grich research project on RAOG website.

February, 2020 - The largest published survey of cytokinin production by insects is out there for you to read! Congratulations, Peter Andreas!

December, 2019 - "Plants, too, need support in times of stress". Read how a new bio-fertilizer project can be the answer.

December, 2019 - Emery Lab is one of the eight successful research teams to be funded across Ontario through a $2M investment by the Agricultural Adaptation Council and Ontario Genomics (through Genome Canada). Read the summary of our project: 'Metabolomic-based strain selection of microbial bioinoculants which alleviate impacts of drought stress in crop production' here.

September, 2019 - Alex Kuhne, MSc student in the Emery Lab, leads delegation at International Arctic Forum.

July, 2019 - Dr. Anna Kisiala featured in the recent CSPB Bulletin - read more (page 10)

May, 2019 - PhD student, Megan Aoki, and her groundbreaking research featured at Trent University News and Events platform.

May, 2019 - Our PhD student, Megan Aoki, talks all about cytokinins in the interview for Random Acts of Green.

May, 2019 - Dr. Neil Emery is a partner in the research aimed at advancing clean-water technology to make Canada’s mining industry more sustainable. The project funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) will develop a sustainable green biofiltration technology for mineral extraction and mining waste waters.

April, 2019 - Our PhD student, Mark Seegobin became a recipient of a prestigious Alexander Graham Bell NSERC CGS D scholarship to support his research on cytokinin function in mammalian systems.

March, 2019 - Alex Kuhne, MSc student in Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Program at Trent University presented her research on recycling algae cultures at the first Trent Graduate Students in Science (TGSS) symposium.

February, 2019 - There is more to the cytokinin story than you could ever imagine! Our PhD student, Megan Aoki, research shows cytokinins can be actively metabolized in human cell cultures - read Megan's paper in FASEB Bioadvances.

January, 2019 - Learn about our MSc student Alex Kuhne innovative research on the future of food.

January, 2019 - Check out the Emery Lab coverage from the ACPD 2018 Prague conference in New Phytologist!

July, 2018 - Breaking news! - Our PhD student, Mark Seegobin discovered presence of a range of "plant" hormones cytokinins in mammalian tissues! Check the interview with Mark and read his paper recently published in The FASEB Journal.

June 2018 - "A virulent and resistant strain of fungus, called “Corn Smut Disease” is currently threatening our corn stalks." - Ibraheem Alimi, MSc student, co-supervised by Prof. Neil Emery and Prof. Barry Saville, explains the importance of his research in the interview for Random Acts of Green.

April, 2017 - To branch or not to branch? Shade, ABA and auxin - Dr. Thien Nguyen and Prof. Neil Emery co-authored an insight paper that accompanies the groundbreaking research on ABA as the earliest upstream inhibitor of apical dominance, recently published in Journal of Experimental Botany.

December, 2016 - Research at Trent in Dr. Neil Emery’s lab highlighted in exhibition titled “Pulses: The Ideal Partner” on loan from the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum in partnership with Pulse Canada (Trent University News & Events)