David W Galbraith

Professor, Plant Science

Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Professor, BIO5 Institute

Primary Department

School of Plant Sciences

Department Affiliations

School of Plant Sciences

BIO5 Institute

Contact

(520) 621-9153

galbraith@arizona.edu

Work Summary

I examine the molecular functions of the different cells found in the tissues and organs of plants and animals and how they combine these functions to optimize the health and vigor of the organism.

Research Interest

David Galbraith obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, and postdoctoral training as a NATO Fellow at Stanford University. His first academic appointment was at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and he became Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of Arizona in 1989. His research has focused on the development of instrumentation and methods for the analysis of biological cells, organs, and systems. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the development and use of flow cytometry and sorting in plants, developing widely-used methods for the analysis of genome size and cell cycle status, and for the production of somatic hybrids. He also was among the first to develop methods for the analysis of gene expression within specific cell types, using markers based on Fluorescent Protein expression for flow sorting these cells, and microarray platforms for analysis of their transcriptional activities and protein complements. Current interests include applications of highly parallel platforms for transcript and protein profiling of minimal sample sizes, and for analysis of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate gene expression during normal development and in diseased states, specifically pancreatic cancer. He is also funded to study factors involved in the regulation of bud dormancy in Vitis vinifera, and has interests in biodiversity and improvement of third-world agriculture. He has published more than 180 scholarly research articles, holds several patents, was elected a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2002, and serves on the editorial board of Cytometry Part A. He is widely sought as a speaker, having presented over 360 seminars in academic, industrial and conference settings. He was elected Secretary of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry in 2016. Keywords: Plant and Animal Cellular Engineering; Biological Instrumentation; Flow Cytometry and Sorting

Publications

Adapting the Biomek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation for printing DNA microarrays

Galbraith, D., Macas, J., Nouzová, M., & Galbraith, D. W. (1998). Adapting the Biomek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation for printing DNA microarrays. BioTechniques, 25(1).

The Biomek 2000 Laboratory Automation Workstation is used for liquid handling and other repetitive operations in many laboratories. Since it has very good spatial positioning capabilities, we have modified this workstation to deliver samples at high densities onto microscope slides to produce DNA microarrays. The workstation tool, originally designed for bacterial colony replication, was adapted to carry special printing pins and was further modified to improve its positional accuracy. Software written in the Tool Command Language was concurrently developed to control the movements of the workstation arm during the process of printing. With these modifications, the workstation can reliably deliver individual samples at a spacing of 0.5 mm, corresponding to a total of more than 3000 samples on a single slide. Arrays prepared in this way were successfully tested in hybridization experiments.

Nuclear dynamics in higher plants.

Galbraith, D. W. (2004). Nuclear dynamics in higher plants.. Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology, 217-228.

Systematic reverse genetics of transfer-DNA-tagged lines of arabidopsis: Isolation of mutations in the cytochrome P450 gene superfamily

Winkler, R. G., Frank, M. R., Galbraith, D. W., Feyereisen, R., & Feldmann, K. A. (1998). Systematic reverse genetics of transfer-DNA-tagged lines of arabidopsis: Isolation of mutations in the cytochrome P450 gene superfamily. Plant Physiology, 118(3), 743-750.

PMID: 9808718;PMCID: PMC34784;Abstract:

We have developed an efficient reverse-genetics protocol that uses expedient pooling and hybridization strategies to identify individual transfer-DNA insertion lines from a collection of 6000 independently transformed lines in as few as 36 polymerase chain reactions. We have used this protocol to systematically isolate Arabidopsis lines containing insertional mutations in individual cytochrome P450 genes. In higher plants P450 genes encode enzymes that perform an exceptionally wide range of functions, including the biosynthesis of primary metabolites necessary for normal growth and development, the biosynthesis of secondary products, and the catabolism of xenobiotics. Despite their importance, progress in assigning enzymatic function to individual P450 gene products has been slow. Here we report the isolation of the first 12 such lines, including one (CYP83B1-1) that displays a runt phenotype (small plants with hooked leaves), and three insertions in abundantly expressed genes. The DNAs used in this study are publicly available and can be used to systematically isolate mutants in Arabidopsis.

High-throughput monitoring of plant nuclear DNA contents via flow cytometry

Galbraith, D., & Lambert, G. (2012). High-throughput monitoring of plant nuclear DNA contents via flow cytometry. Methods in Molecular Biology, 918, 311-325.

Plant systems biology comes of age

Yuan, J. S., Galbraith, D. W., Dai, S. Y., Griffin, P., & Stewart Jr., C. N. (2008). Plant systems biology comes of age. TRENDS IN PLANT SCIENCE, 13(4), 165-171.

David W Galbraith