Plants are vital to our survival.
Not only do they ultimately contribute to all of our food supply, but they play other important roles as well. From a multitude of medicines to products like cosmetics, paper, lumber and even plastic, plants are great contributors to our life on Earth. They interact with and are affected by our environment-producing the oxygen we breath and suffering or thriving based on changes in the weather. Plants are complex biological organisms with many genetic and biochemical systems similar to humans and other animals. The plant biologist seeks to understand these systems at the molecular, cellular and whole-plant level.