Their functioning in normal and tumor cells is currently being investigated and will hopefully lead to the better control of cancer development. The availability of a nearly complete plant genome is also revolutionizing plant sciences. A number of outstanding questions in the molecular biology of mammalian cells may find an answer from investigations of similar systems in plant cells. Plant genomes show a great degree of plasticity so that genetic variance within any one plant species can be much greater than anything encountered within the animal species. A. Levy's lab in the Plant Sciences Department has found evidence for massive movement of transposable elements of DNA and has built a tool to harness this shuffling for the purpose of gene discovery and the understanding of the functions played by different gene products.
Plant cells have the same molecular components of innate defense as animals.
Due to their immobility, plants must adapt to a large variety of environmental inputs. A. Danon has recently unraveled a novel light sensing signaling mechanism that can affect the expression of certain genes and is based on an internal reduction-oxidation reaction that is catalysed by light. These findings may have ramifications for similar signaling mechanisms in other eukaryotic cells. Continuous progress in the Life Sciences is more and more dependent on the ability to introduce modern equipment as well as the to increase the cooperation between scientists of different expertise. During 2000 we have introduced the automated novel DNA microarray technology which will enable the identification of differentially expressed genes.