Humans are explorers––go boldly | Anna-Lisa Paul | TEDxUF

Humans are explorers, and space is what is next. Plants allows us to explore past the limits of a picnic basket to destinations beyond Earth’s orbit.

In this talk, Research Professor Dr. Anna-Lisa Paul plants the seeds to a future of agriculture in space. Dr. Anna-Lisa Paul is a Research Professor in the Horticultural Sciences department at the University of Florida, in the program of Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology. She is a plant molecular biologist with an interest in how plants respond to abiotic stress, particularly at the gene expression level. Dr. Paul and her colleague Robert Ferl have launched and analyzed ten spaceflight experiments between 1999 and 2018, which primarily explored the effects of the spaceflight environment on the patterns of gene expression and signal transduction in a model plant. Current research is focused on evaluating the epigenomic responses of Arabidopsis to the spaceflight environment. Paul has also served the space biology community as the Editor in Chief of the journal Gravitational and Space Research, as a member of the ISS Standing Review Board, on the GeneLab Science Council, and as the President of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx