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Dr. Wendy A Peer

Associate Professor

Associate Professor

Environmental Science & Technology 1426 Animal Science/Agricultural Engineering Building 8127 Regents Drive College Park, Maryland 20742

Research Focus

  • Use biochemistry, genetics, live cell imaging, phenology, and physiology to address hypothesis-driven research in plant growth and development

  • Investigate the roles of plant specialized compounds, including flavonoids and hormones, and other plant growth regulators in plant developmental processes and responses to the environment

  • Auxin homeostasis

  • Flavonoid function

  • Plant growth regulators/invasive species

  • Metal-center proteins

Education:

  • B.S. Chemistry (Honors) California State University, Bakersfield

  • B.S. Biology (Honors) California State University, Bakersfield

  • Ph.D. University of California, Santa Cruz

Teaching:

Course

Course Title

AGST/PLSC 130

Did Yeast Create Civilization? (Fall)

ENST407/PLSC400/BSCI442

Plant Physiology (Spring)

ENST 472/ 489

Capstone / Senior Integrative Experience (Fall, Spring)

PLSC608T

Supervised Teaching (Fall, Spring)

ENST789M

Advances in Research: Plant Membrane Biology (Fall, Spring)

ENST789O    

Invasive Plants (Fall)

Recent Publications:

Puthanveetil, P., Kong, X., Braese, S., Voros, G., Peer, W. A. (2021). Transcriptome analysis of two structurally related flavonoids; Apigenin and Chrysin revealed hypocholesterolemic and ketogenic effects in mouse embryonic fibroblasts. European Journal of Pharmacology, 893.

Li G, Lin R, Egekwu C, Blakeslee J, Lin J, Pettengill E, Murphy AS, Peer WA, Islam N, Babst BA, Gao F, Komarov S, Tai YC, Coleman GD. (2020) Seasonal nitrogen remobilization and the role of auxin transport in poplar trees. J Exp Bot. 71(15):4512-4530. doi: 10.1093/jxb/eraa130. PMID: 32161967; PMCID: PMC7382381.

Guan L, Tayengwa R, Zongming (Max) Cheng ZM, Peer WA*, Murphy AS, Zhao M. (2019). Auxin regulates adventitious root formatioin tomato cuttings. BMC Plant Biol 19, 435 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-019-2002-9

Pereira FCM, Tayengwa R, Alves PL, Peer WA*. (2018) Phosphate status affects phosphate transporter expression and glyphosate uptake and transport in grand Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis). Weed Science 67:29–40. doi: 10.1017/wsc.2018.58

Zhang J, Peer WA* (2017). Auxin homeostasis: The DAO of catabolism. Journal of Experimental Botany 12:3145–3154. doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erx221

Zhang J, Lin J, Harris C, Mastrotti Pereira F, Wu F, Blakeslee JJ, Peer WA* (2016) DAO1 catalyzes temporal and tissue-specific oxidative inactivation of auxin in Arabidopsis thaliana. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 13: 11010–11015, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1604769113.

Cossu A, Ercan D, Wang Q, Peer WA, Nitin N, Tikekar RV (2016) Antimicrobial effect of synergistic interaction between UV-A light and gallic acid against Escherichia coli O157:H7 in fresh-produce wash water and biofilm. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, DOI: 10.1016/j.ifset.2016.07.020

Yang H, Wei H, Ma G, Antunes MS, Vogt S, Cox J, Zhang X, Liu X, Bu L, Gleber SC, Carpita NC, Makowski L, Himmel ME, Tucker MP, McCann MC, Murphy AS, Peer WA*. (2016). Cell wall targeted in planta iron accumulation enhances biomass conversion and seed iron concentration in Arabidopsis and rice. Plant Biotechnology Journal 14:1998-2009. doi: 10.1111/pbi.12557

Lin C-Y, Jakes JE, Donohoe BS, Ciesielski PN, Yang H, Gleber S-C, Vogt S, Ding S-Y, Peer WA, Murphy AS, McCann MC, Himmel ME, Tucker MP, Wei H. (2016) Directed plant cell wall accumulation of iron: Embedding co-catalyst for efficient biomass conversion. Biotechnology for Biofuels, 9:225 DOI 10.1186/s13068-016-0639-2.

Underline denotes individuals from Dr. Peer's Lab

Lab Information:

The Physiology and Genetics Laboratory uses biochemistry, genetics, live cell imaging, phenology, and physiology to address hypothesis-driven research in plant growth and development. In my group, we investigate the roles of plant specialized compounds, including flavonoids and hormones, and other plant growth regulators in plant developmental processes and responses to the environment.

Current research projects:

  • Maryland Yeast Project

  • Grain Quality Lab

  • Symbiosis

  • Plant growth regulators/ invasiveness

  • Auxin homeostasis in plant development

  • Metal-center proteins

  • Flavonoid functions

Please email Dr. Wendy Ann Peer regarding undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral, and summer intern positions.

Remember, science is fun! Be curious about the world around you!