Plant Biomechanics

Anja Geitmann Dr. Geitmann is the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Associate Vice-Principal (Macdonald Campus) of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Biomechanics of Plant Development and leads an interdisciplinary team of biologists and engineers. Her research group is affiliated with the Department of Plant Science located at the Macdonald Campus. Dr. Geitmann is actively involved with several learned societies. In 2013-2015 she served as President of the Microscopical Society of Canada and she was the President of the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists in 2015-2017 following mandates as Vice-President and Education Director. She is the Vice-President of the International Association of Plant Reproduction Research and she serves on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals including Plant Physiology and The Cell Surface. Dr. Geitmann obtained her PhD in Environmental Biology in 1997 from the University of Siena (Italy), following undergraduate and graduate studies in biology at the University of Constance (Germany), Oregon State University (USA), and Stockholm University (Sweden). From 1997 to 2001 she performed postdoctoral research at the Université Laval, Québec, and at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. In 2001, she was recruited as a faculty member by the Department of Biological Sciences of the Université de Montréal and the Institut de recherche en biologie végétale. She taught Plant Anatomy, Microscopy, and Scientific Communication at undergraduate and graduate levels, respectively before moving to McGill University in 2015. Dr. Geitmann has organized numerous international conferences and workshops including a NATO Workshop on Tip Growth, joint meetings between the American and Canadian Societies of Plant Biology, and an international Workshop on Cell Wall Mechanics at the Banff International Research Station. In 2018, she organized the 9th International Plant Biomechanics Conference in Montreal. Dr. Geitmann investigates the mechanical aspects of processes involved in plant growth and reproduction. Her research combines cell biology with engineering methodology and focuses on the intracellular processes that lead to the formation of differentiated cell shapes, plant organs and functional tissues. These studies aim at understanding the interrelation between the primary cell wall and turgor, as well as the intracellular transport processes regulating cell wall assembly and mechanical behavior. One of the model cell types investigated is the pollen tube, a very rapidly growing plant cell that has the capacity to penetrate tissues, direct its growth following guidance cues, and to deliver the sperm cells during plant fertilization. Dr. Geitmann's research group has developed sophisticated experimental and computational tools enabling researchers to answer questions such as how the pollen tube turns and how it exerts invasive forces. In other research projects her team investigates how plant cells undergo morphogenesis to generate intricate geometrical shapes and mechanical tissues with specific material properties. Joseph Gril Dr. Gril holds a CNRS senior scientist position in mechanical engineering science and currently leads a French consortium of institutions and researchers involved in wood science. Dr. Gril graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1981 and from Ecole du Génie rural des Eaux et des Forêts in 1983. In 1988, he obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Paris 6 University. He was hired as a CNRS researcher in 1989 and worked in the Laboratory of Mechanics and Civil Engineering (LMGC) where in 2004 he succeeded Bernard Thibaut as leader of a research group devoted to basic and applied knowledge on wood, tree biomechanics, support of research in developing countries, introduction of wood culture in university curricula. In 2008 and 2009 he worked 5 months in th

Organ and Tissue Mechanics.- Wood cell wall structure and organization in relation to mechanics.- Modelling, evaluation and biomechanical consequences of growth stress profiles inside tree stems.- Bending stress in plant stems: Models and assumptions.- Tree mechanics and wind loading.- Growth, Morphogenesis & Motion.- The mechanics of leaf growth on large scales.- Twisting growth in plant roots.- Plants at bodybuilding: development of plant "muscles".- Modeling plant morphogenesis: An introduction.- Mechanical conflicts in growth heterogeneity.- Folding, wrinkling and buckling in plant cell walls.- Structural principles in the design of hygroscopically moving plant cells.- Using modeling to understand the hygromechanical and hysteretic behavior of the S2 cell wall layer of wood.- Molecular Underpinnings of Cell Wall Mechanics.- Calcium-pectin chemistry and biomechanics: Biological background and mathematical modelling.- Cell wall expansion as viewed by the creep method.- Tensile testing of primary plant cells and tissues.+- Water Transport, Mechanosensing & Biomimetics.- Water motion and sugar translocation in leaves.- Molecular mechanisms of mechanosensing and mechanotransduction.- Biomechanics and functional morphology of plants - inspiration for biomimetic materials and structures.