Andrew Leakey@leakey77

Prof, Depts Plant Biol and Crop Sci, Inst for Genomic Biology, Uni of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Projects: @CABBIbio @AIFARMs @foxymillet @rootsinthefield

lab.igb.illinois.edu/leakey/…
Joined December 2010
222 Photos and videos
Don't miss out. Registration ends soon for the First International Miscanthus Summit with 2 days of science plus 2 days of industry. Join us for either half or both! lnkd.in/p/gKbeaFWh
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New soybean may help keep the air cleaner and beat drought weather.com/2026/09/26/scien…

Could this new soybean keep the air cleaner and beat drought?

Scientists are testing deep-rooted soybeans that could survive drought and store more carbon underground.

weather.com
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Congratulations @JohnFerguson89 bbc.com/news/articles/cmz9z7…

Essex biologist hopes to boost food security with maize research

Dr John Ferguson says the research will "drive the future" of food security.

bbc.com
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
CABBI@CABBIbio
Sep 22
CABBI researchers harnessed an unusual fatty acid pathway in engineered oilseed, creating a powerful synthetic biology toolkit to produce high-value oil. This provides a scalable bio-based source for industrial lubricants, supporting the #bioeconomy. 📰science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…
DOE science slide for the CABBI study, "Polyketide Synthase-like Functionality Acquired by Plant Fatty Acid Elongase."

ALT DOE science slide for the CABBI study, "Polyketide Synthase-like Functionality Acquired by Plant Fatty Acid Elongase."
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
Governor JB Pritzker
@GovPritzker
Sep 22
Proud to serve as Co-Chair of America Is All In at #ClimateWeekNYC. Illinois understands that affordability, reliability, and clean energy go hand in hand. Unlike the President, this coalition of governors, mayors, and more knows we must act now to address climate change.
Governor Pritzker joins Gina McCarthy for a fireside chat during Climate Week NYC.

ALT Governor Pritzker joins Gina McCarthy for a fireside chat during Climate Week NYC.

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I'm delighted to be using our unique capabilities at @UofIllinois to non-destructively assess whole root system size and depth distribution of field-grown crops to test the performance of these soybeans engineered by Wolfgang Busch and his HPI team. bit.ly/46tkU2n

Scientists hope deeper-rooted soybeans can withstand climate extremes and store more carbon

For years, scientists have explored ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, including through direct air capture, changes to ocean chemistry so seawater can absorb more carbon and reforestation.

apnews.com
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What if biomass could create more value? Parallel Session at #WCEF2026 spotlighted the circular bioeconomy, from biomass to value-added products and new opportunities for resource efficiency. #WCEF2026 #CPCB @byadavbjp @KVSinghMPGonda @moefcc @PIB_India @WCEF2026 @SitraFund
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High-resolution microCT reveals relationships between stomata and interior leaf anatomy in sorghum academic.oup.com/plphys/arti… @jfischerbotany @brodersen_lab @CABBIbio @ASPB @SorghumGrowers @PlantPhys
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Really enjoyed having @NSF program directors visit our two NSF Global Centers on plants and microbes for the Bioeconomy: ASAP publish.illinois.edu/globalc…... and GCBA gcba.illinois.edu
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Virus‐induced gene editing of stomatal regulators in Nicotiana benthamiana enables rapid functional genomics - Tibebu - 2026 - The Plant Journal - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…

Virus‐induced gene editing of stomatal regulators in Nicotiana benthamiana enables rapid functional...

We present a rapid method for functional genomics using a tobacco rattle virus-based gene editing platform. This platform enables both somatic and heritable editing of stomatal regulators in Nicoti...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
Alex Wu@doc_alexwu
17 Dec 2025
📢🌱📈 Postdoc opportunity at @UQ_News, @QAAFI We’re hiring a postdoc to work at the interface of Crop Modelling & Physiology & #Photosynthesis & Crop Improvement. Job description and apply here: tinyurl.com/54rcwkt6 CI Wu: tinyurl.com/595t98wa
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Delighted to share new work on the 3D anatomy and stomatal patterning of a C4 grass in collaboration with @brodersen_lab @jfischerbotany biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…

High-resolution microCT reveals relationships between stomata and interior leaf anatomy in Sorghum

Stomata are pores in the leaf epidermis that regulate the trade-off between CO2 uptake for photosynthesis and water vapor loss to the atmosphere. Stomatal patterning therefore influences water use...

biorxiv.org
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
Chicago Tribune
@chicagotribune
9 Dec 2025
Just like cornstalks across the Midwest, this crop grows several feet tall as it reaches up to the sky. And similar to soybean cultivation in the last century, annual production of miscanthus is projected to skyrocket to millions of acres by 2050. trib.al/vxtcNGK

Illinois researchers say versatile grass could be used for sustainable fuel, building materials and...

Miscanthus has a smaller carbon footprint than corn and soybeans, and experts say it has the potential to strengthen U.S. energy independence.

chicagotribune.com
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Stomata In-Sight: Integrating Live Confocal Microscopy with Leaf Gas Exchange and Environmental Control academic.oup.com/plphys/arti… @CABBIbio @ASPB @PlantPhys @PlantPhys_Cam @ASA_CSSA_SSSA @PEPG_SIG @LICOR_ENV @zeiss_micro @RIPEproject

Stomata in-sight: Integrating live confocal microscopy with leaf gas exchange and environmental...

The development of a tool to simultaneously measure stomatal conductance and aperture enables investigation into the role of stomatal anatomy in controllin

academic.oup.com
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Sign up! Registration closes soon for the 1st Great Lakes Plant Science Conference @SueRhee2 @CABBIbio @ASPB @ASA_CSSA_SSSA
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Delighted this week to welcome 50 scientists from @Bayer4CropsUS to discuss our capabilities for in-field phenotyping of root system size and distribution #highthroughputphenotyping @kmgillespie
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
Plant Physiology@PlantPhys
13 May 2025
Breaking the barrier of human-annotated training data for machine learning-aided plant research using aerial imagery (Sebastian Varela , Xuying Zheng , Joyce Njuguna , Erik Sacks , Dylan Allen , Jeremy Ruhter , Andrew D B Leakey) doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiaf1… @ASPB #PlantSci
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Andrew Leakey retweeted
CABBI@CABBIbio
24 Apr 2025
A team led by CABBI Director Andrew Leakey & Postdoc Sebastian Varela created a machine-learning tool that can teach itself to differentiate between aerial images of flowering & nonflowering grasses—greatly accelerating agricultural field research. News ➡️news.illinois.edu/new-approa…
Portrait photo of Andrew Leakey against a dark background. (Photo by Craig Pessman / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

ALT Portrait photo of Andrew Leakey against a dark background. (Photo by Craig Pessman / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

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Breaking the barrier of human-annotated training data for machine learning-aided plant research using aerial imagery academic.oup.com/plphys/arti…

Breaking the barrier of human-annotated training data for machine learning-aided plant research...

Machine learning approach accelerates plant phenotyping by reducing large amounts of human-annotated data, enabling faster and more efficient detection of

academic.oup.com
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Newly elected NAS international member Keiko U. Torii of @TexasScience investigates how positional cues influence cell-fate decisions, translating into functional tissue patterning during the development of multicellular organisms. Read more: ow.ly/uZ8y50VFxvE #NASmember
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