Attention should focus on shaping the view of plants as essential tools for understanding cell biology in general


The online infrastructure should include a list of reporter lines that are valuable for cell-type/cluster annotation of single-cell RNA sequencing data and gold-standard datasets for teaching and developing new methods.Finally, the database should incorporate cell-type marker genes and their corresponding orthologs, expressologs, and matches across species, synteny maps of good markers, and a repository to record findings if marker genes translate across species.While gene orthology viewers, are part of the several platforms and are already providing an ensemble approach to identify gene orthology relationships , orthology tools also integrating single-cell transcriptome information across species are not yet available.Furthermore, orthology-based projection of gene annotation approach has limitations in providing accurate functional annotation for gene family members and manual bio-curation of plant gene families will help analysis of PCA datasets as well.Collaborative efforts will help leverage the potential of individual labs in dissecting cellular complexity.To facilitate collaborations, the PCA website should provide a list of participating labs and community members, along with their specific exper.Thise.An online space should also be provided to enable discussion and troubleshooting among the plant single-cell sequencing community.Finally, training scien.Thists in the analysis of single-cell plant datasets should be emphasized,led grow lights potentially in the form of summer schools or workshops.For instance, hands-on bio-informatics workshops could center on the “hows and whys” of certain analyses.

As not everyone can attend a physical workshop, the PCA should consider ways of distributing training materials that are free and accessible to all, or holding hybrid or virtual workshops.Outreach efforts could also focus on incorporating plant cell genomics into undergraduate and K–12 education.Moreover, an increased social media presence will help get the public excited about plant cells.The PCA community must explore novel modes of organization and engagement to catalyze new ideas, research directions, and discoveries in a time of rapid change.Monthly or bi-monthly meetings on specific topics or journal clubs would facilitate discussions and collaborations.Existing PCA Slack channels could be leveraged for these communications.“Brainstorming” days, that is, pre-defined days of synchronous discussion, could concentrate on specific topics, questions, or ideas on a platform like Slack or Discourse.Finally, events focused on early-career researchers would help build a community among graduate students, postbacs, and postdoctoral fellows.The PCA could consider ideation platforms such as Hype or Yambla to establish an idea caretaker community and processing workflow to enable ideas to be developed into projects with expert guidance.These tools could serve as ideation- or solution-providing platforms to spark creativity globally and to develop ideas.In terms of sharing data, the Single Cell Portal might provide a template for sharing data and analysis pipelines.Another potential model is DataCite, which takes an interactive approach to making their road map development public.Finally, it would be valuable to further connect with other atlases to model their data streams.For instance, the Human Cell Atlas has subgroups with specific goals and challenges; this approach could help to further organize the PCA community.Identifying and organizing subgroups interested in the same types of data collection or analysis around common goals could encourage collaboration.

The PCA community must ensure that individuals and groups who are not regular participants due to disciplinary barriers, cultural differences, or resource limitations are included.To this end, efforts should focus on open sharing of metadata, data, and code.Beyond data and resource sharing, virtual opportunities can help broaden the reach of the PCA.Events could enable natural networking and discussion through virtual interfaces that emulate real conference experiences of “walking into someone.” Because research can be expensive, the PCA could consider developing a virtual Research Experience for Undergraduates program for single-cell biology.In addition to specialized virtual experiences, introductory online workshops and webinars could cater to high school and college students with no research experience.The PCA could also focus on finding ways to reduce the cost of conducting research, either by developing inexpensive, accessible technologies or by lobbying for grants to fund projects.Such efforts should prioritize proposals with economic or other tangible benefits, such as single-cell omics on traits of common staple crops or commercially grown plant varieties.This approach would better engage breeders and farmers in the PCA.To reach under served organizations and countries, the PCA could create a panel of experts to serve as advisors.Special planning groups could meet to understand the needs of communities of interest and consider forming local PCA chapters.The PCA could develop introductory bio-informatics workshops for under served high school or college students.Finally, it will be necessary for the PCA community to promote an inclusive and supportive culture that fosters conversations and encourages everyone to contribute.Discussions should center on “imposter syndrome” and other emotional challenges that are common in research settings.There should also be a clear code of conduct with zero tolerance of harassment.It is essential to develop and support the next generation of plant scien.Thists to help achieve the goals of the PCA; this will seed paradigm shifting discoveries in the future.New students and talent can be brought in from other disciplines, helping to diversify the thought base.Platforms, collaborations, and events could recruit and engage such researchers.

To foster cross-disciplinary connections, engineering, bio-informatics, computational science, and information technology courses can include plant science and, vice versa, plant biology programs can include these disciplines.The PCA could also develop flyers on exciting plant science technologies to distribute to engineering, physics, computation, and chemistry departments.Research focused on human biology, evolution, or ecology could leverage the ease of experimentation in plant biology, again promoting cross disciplinary collaborations.These collaborations could arise through the sharing of tools and resources from the PCA.Another way to attract and nurture new talent is to develop methods for familiarizing a broader range of people with single-cell datasets.The PCA could hold specialized workshops, write periodic review articles on single-cell technologies, and establish opportunities for training.Internships for graduate students could be promoted through commercial providers such as 10X Genomics or Resolve Biosciences.In addition, the PCA could promote the availability of programs at user facilities such as the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory to learn about new technologies.The PCA could inform public and private funding institutions about the importance of specialized technologies for plant This issues and lobby for more funding to this area of plant biology to draw more researchers to the field.Finally, the PCA could inspire the development of exciting new technologies and ideas through competitions, such as a hackathon contest, open challenges on Kaggle or other data repositories, or a plant science competition in partnership with philanthropy and industry.It will also be critical to get people excited about plant science during early education.Efforts should focus on exposing K–12 students to gardening and emerging technologies for growing plants, such as vertical farming, hydroponics, and shipping container farming.An exciting presence on social media can also help spark curiosity and interest in non-scienthists and younger students who have not yet chosen a discipline.The PCA should consider engaging with scientific communication students to develop inspiring content for the public.The PCA could also find ways to include plant cell science in core undergraduate education through influencing major textbook authors, developing conceptual and hands-on educational materials,strawberry gutter system and assembling undergraduate career path materials to increase awareness of jobs in plant sciences.A necessary goal of the PCA must be to inform the wider scientific community on the value of using single-cell approaches to better understand plant biology and apply this knowledge to design new strategies to improve crop performance.To help achieve this goal, there is a need to connect the single-cell research community with the traditional plant biology community.Moreover, this mindset can be developed through education from high schools to graduate schools.Beyond the plant biology field, the PCA can apply its data, resources, and tools to help clarify biological mechanisms in other organisms.By building a community and focus, the PCA can help garner the attention of animal and microbial biologists as well as applied science and industry researchers.Opportunities to make these connections include international conferences that bring together leading minds across biological systems, such as Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conferences or Gordon Research Conferences.Finally, outreach should occur outside of the scientific community to reach important stakeholders such as breeders and growers and seek out stakeholders in regions not currently well represented in the PCA, such as the South and Central United States.Many universities and states have outreach and extension offices that can connect researchers directly with growers.The PCA should leverage these opportunities in order to engage a broader community.

More than 40% of the world’s current population live in poverty-stricken areas where malaria, alone or together with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , tuberculosis, and cholera, is a serious public health problem.According to the World Health Organization , 216 million clinical cases of malaria occurred in 2010 resulting in an estimated 655,000 deaths.Among the available public health malaria interventions, chemotherapy remains the predominant tool.To combat multi-drug resistance in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, WHO has recommended the use of artemisinin -based combination therapies.Currently, a number of ACTs such as artemether -lumefantrine, artesunate -amodiaquine, ATSmefloquine, and dihydroartemisinin -piperaquine are being used in many malaria-endemic areas.The ART, first isolated from a Chinese herb Artemisia annua, belongs to sesquiterpene lactone endoperoxides.The use of ART has been superseded by its derivatives such as the water soluble ATS, DHA, and the lipophilic esters ATM and arteether. Poor quality medicines, including substandard and counterfeit drugs, cause a major loss on public health in resource-poor countries. The WHO has estimated that about 25% of the medicines consumed in developing countries are counterfeit.The illicit trade in counterfeit and substandard ARTs is a severe problem for malaria control, because it not only reduces the treatment efficacy and promotes development of resistance, but also may result in life-threatening complications.Antimalarial drugs have been reported as a target of counterfeiting in resourcepoor areas. The magnitude of this problem is particularly huge in Southeast Asia.Newton and others reported that 38% of 104 shop-bought ATS samples from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam did not contain ATS, whereas in some regions as much as 64% of the drugs contain little ATS.Since 1998, an epidemic of multiple types of counterfeit ATS tablets has affected malaria patients in Southeast Asia. As many as 14 physical types of the fake ATS have been found in this region.In addition, some genuine drugs are often substandard,compromising their expected therapeutic effect. Another problem associated with substandard antimalarials is expiration and degradation, which require close monitoring. Bate and others reported that significant proportions of the antimalarial drugs, including ART derivatives, failed the content and dissolution tests in six most severely malarious regions of Africa. This suggests that counterfeit and substandard antimalarial drugs are a global problem, which may imperil the great stride made towards malaria control in recent years after switching to ACTs. A sensitive, low cost, easy to use diagnostic tool for ART quality control is hence urgently needed. A number of methods have been developed for the detection of ARTs, including high-performance liquid chromatography ,gas chromatography -flame ionization detection,GC-mass spectrometric detection,liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry,radioimmunoassay,and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.The instrumentations and methods used to test the contents of ART are usually expensive and time-consuming, and require rigorous sample preparation, whereas isotope-based assays have potential health hazards. Being rapid, cost-effective, sensitive, simple, and convenient, ELISA has become popular for the detection of botanical chemicals and drugs31; we have previously generated a monoclonal antibody 3H2 using ATS-bovine serum albumin conjugate as the immunogen. An indirect competitive ELISA was developed to detect ART in the A. annua samples.Here, we have further refined this assay for the quantification of ART and its derivatives. We directly compared the performance of the icELISA with that of the gold standard HPLC method using standards of ART and its derivatives and 22 ART-based antimalarial drugs purchased from the market.Antimalarial drug tablets were crushed by grinding with a clean mortar, which was washed three times with ~1.5 mL of acetonitrile. The acetonitrile suspension was transferred into a 15-mL tube, sonicated in a Branson SB5200 ultrasonic oscillation under room temperature for 30 min, followed by centrifugation at 2,080 g for 30 min. The extraction procedure was repeated three times and the supernatants were combined and filtrated through a 0.5-mm syringe filter. The filtrates were collected and stored at 4°C before analysis. For the commercial samples, the sample extracts were diluted into 2 mg/mL with acetonitrile as stock solutions for the icELISA and HPLC assays based on the labeled content of the commercial drugs. Stocks were then diluted using PBSTG to obtain concentrations in the working range of the icELISA.