University of Missouri

Biography

Ron Mittler’s research interests are focused on the role Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) play in the regulation of different biological processes. As model organisms, he uses Arabidopsis thaliana plants and human epithelial breast cancer cells because they provide an ideal platform for the questions he is interested in.

His approach to research is to focus on questions that are biologically important (and fundable), and to address them using a comprehensive approach of molecular genetics, biochemistry, structural biology, physiology, biophysics, chemistry, bioinformatics, omics and systems biology. He strives to obtain a deep understanding of the biological process in question by making predictions, generating models, and integrating data from different platforms, as well as by using different mutants and imaging tools to test my hypotheses. He collaborates with different computational biologists (e.g., Jose’ Onuchic), bioinformaticians (e.g., Rajeev Azad), and biostatisticians (e.g., Karen Schlauch), as well as with different plant physiology (e.g., Eduardo Blumwald) and cancer (e.g., Eli Pikarski) experts, and chemists (e.g., Itamar Willner).

To Mittler, the ultimate reward in science is to find out how all the pieces of the scientific puzzle fit together to provide an answer to the working hypothesis (or change it if not…). Some of the important contributions he made so far include the discovery of the ROS wave and the important role it plays in systemic responses in plants, the establishment of the abiotic stress combination research field in plants and the different findings he made regarding the response of plants to a combination of two different stresses, and the definition of the ROS gene network of Arabidopsis that was followed by the characterization of different mutants involved in this network.