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Image of Malcolm Bennett

Malcolm Bennett

Professor of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Science

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Biography

Discovering how plant roots use environmental signals to regulate their growth and development has been an enduring interest throughout Malcolm's research career. Over the last three decades his team has characterized many regulatory signals, genes and mechanisms that control root growth and development. Recent highlights include discovering how plant roots sense and adapt to water stress (Orosa et al, 2018, Science; Mehra et al, 2022, Science; Roy et al, 2025, Science).

Recognising the importance of studying root responses in their natural soil environment, Malcolm and colleagues have developed the unique X-ray based root and soil imaging lab called the Hounsfield Facility (named after the locally born Nobel Prize winning inventor of X-ray microCT, Sir Godfrey Hounsfield)(https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/microct/about-us/index.aspx).

Malcolm and his collaborators recent research discoveries include root-water adaptive responses called Hydropatterning (Bao et al, 2014, PNAS; Scharwies et al, 2025, Science) and Xerobranching (Orman-Ligeza et al, 2018, Current Biology; Mehra et al, 2022, Science; Roy & Mehra et al, 2025, Science); together with a novel gas diffusion mechanism explaining how roots sense hard, compacted soils (Pandey et al, 2021, Science; Huang et al, 2022, PNAS; Zhu et al, 2025, Nature).

Malcolm co-leads several major research grants including the €10M ERC SYNERGY 'HYDROSENSING' project (2024-2029) which aims to discover 'How plants sense water stress'. https://hydrosensing.eu/

Malcolm has published >250 research papers and review articles about root growth and development and is ranked among among the most highly cited animal and plant biologists globally.

His research activities have attracted fellowships and awards including BBSRC Professorial (2010), ERC Advanced (2011) and Royal Society Wolfson Research (2013) Fellowships; honorary degrees from UC Louvain (Belgium, 2016) and SLU (Sweden, 2023), the Dundee Medal (2022).and election to the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO; 2014) and Royal Society (2020).

Publication Metrics: # research and review papers >250; # citatations >60,000; h factor 130

Selected research publications this year

  1. Zhu, M et al (2025) Single-cell transcriptomics reveal how root tissues adapt to soil stress. Nature 642, 721-729 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08941-z
  2. Roy D, Mehra P et al (2025) Redox-regulated Aux/IAA multimerization modulates auxin responses. Science 389https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adu1470
  3. Mehra P et al (2025) Root Growth and Development in "Real Life": Advances and Challenges in Studying Root-Environment Interactions. Annual Review of Plant Biology 76 https://doi.org/10.1146...v-arplant-083123-074506
  4. Banda, J et al (2025) Elucidating tissue and subcellular specificity of the entire SUMO network reveals how stress responses are fine-tuned in a eukaryote. Science Advances 11, eadw9153. DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adw9153
  5. Scharwies JD et al (2025) Moisture-responsive root-branching pathways identified in diverse maize breeding germplasm. Science 387, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ads5999

Expertise Summary

Plant biologist

Root-soil interactions

Root-water interactions

Systems biology

Teaching Summary

Plant development

Plant evolution

Plant stem cells

Selected Publications

Examples of current lab members include

Poonam Mehra,

EMBO, Marie-Curie, Discovery and ERC Starter Research Fellowship winner

Xero-Branching: discovering how plant roots adapt to reduced water availability

IMy project focuses on studying roots sense and adapt to soil moisture. I am specifically interested in uncovering molecular mechanisms behind a novel root adaptive response termed 'Xero-branching' (Orman-Ligeza et al., 2018, Current Biology). Xero-branching is characterized by complete suppression of root branching in an area of low water availability in soil (e.g. air-filled gap). My goal is to discover the roles of plant signals like ABA, auxin and ROS in regulating Xero-branching. I recently published my research results in Science (Mehra et al, 2022; Roy & Mehra et al, 2025)..

Jason Banda,

Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher,

BBSRC 'SUMOcode' sLOLA Project:

SUMOcode is a collaborative, multi-displinary project across four institutions. It aims to improve crop resilience, future proofing them against ongoing climate instability and change, and catalyse new insights across plants and animals into the rules that govern an organisms responses to their environment. SUMOylation has been shown by our group and others that it is important for the way a cell responds to environmental stresses such as water availability (Orosa-Puente et al, 2018, Science). Discovering how SUMO transduces environmental signals into specific physiological responses will be key to understanding this new set of fundamental 'rules of life' that regulate processes ranging from development to disease resistance in an ever-changing environment. Our SUMOcode project recently published the very SUMO Cell Atlas in an eukaryote (Banda et al, 2025, Science Advances) https://www.sumocode.org

Nicky Leftley,

Root Groups Lab Manager

I am the lab manager of the Nottingham Root Groups and work in the lab of Malcolm Bennett. The main focus of my research is to address how SUMO-mediated environmental responses create plasticity within root systems. It is known that roots have the ability to distinguish between wet and dry micro environments in the soil and adapt the positioning of lateral roots accordingly. This novel adaptive response is referred to as hydropatterning and was the basis behind my PhD thesis - 'dissecting the molecular mechanism regulating lateral root hydropatterning'. Our work uncovered that this mechanism, for controlling root branching, involves the post-translational modification of the auxin response factor ARF7 (Orosa-Puente et al., 2018, Science). We now hope to go beyond ARF7 and unravel the SUMO mediated signal transduction pathway. This will help us to understand a major regulator of plant-environmental responses.

Bipin Pandey,

BBSRC Discovery, Nottingham and ERC Starter Grant Research Fellowships

Characterising root adaptive responses to soil compaction stress

Soil compaction represents a major challenge facing modern agriculture, reducing crop yields by <25%, and when combined with drought <75%, as roots struggle to penetrate hard soils, causing £ billions in losses annually. Efforts to mitigate the impacts of soil compaction include reducing tillage, controlled traffic farming (CTF) or sub-soil management. However, these approaches can be time consuming, costly to implement and ineffective for the deeper soil profile. Engineering crops to better withstand compacted soil environments offers a novel solution to improve crop growth in affected fields (Europe has 36-million-hectares of soil prone to compaction). This is now a realistic possibility after our recent discovery that roots can penetrate compacted soils after disrupting their sensitivity to the plant signal ethylene (Pandey et al. Science, 2021). The paper's findings was covered by a wide range of media (18 global news outlets; >2.7m twitter followers; and funding agencies including UKRI). My BBSRC, NRF and ERC fellowships focus on how ethylene acts and identifying its downstream targets using advanced techniques such as spatial transcriptomics. Recent research highlights include senior corresponding author papers (Huang et al, 2022, PNAS; Zhu et al, 2025, Nature).

Riccardo Fusi,

Senior Post-Doctoral Researcher

BBSRC Research Project BreakTHRU

The BreakTHRU research project proposes to build on our recent findings (Pandey et al, 2022, Science) and improve wheat responses to compacted soil by modifying their ethylene response. This goal promises to be transformative in laying the foundation for new crop varieties with improved root traits. We plan to address this goal with an interdisciplinary team of scientists from Nottingham (UoN) and Lancaster (LU), Rothamsted (RRes) and ADAS, plus international collaborators

Examples of Lab Members (with new role and employer) in a research related academic, governmental or commercial organisation includes

  • Leah Band (Professor, University of Nottingham)
  • Benjamin Peret (Group Leader and ERC New Investigator, INRA Montpellier)
  • Tatsuaki Goh (Assistant Professor, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan)
  • Daniela Dietrich (Lecturer, University of Bristol)
  • Rahul Bhosale (Associate Professor, University of Nottingham)
  • Bipin Pandey (Associate Professor, University of Nottingham)
  • Poonam Mehra (Associate Professor, University of Nottingham)
  • Azad Kilic (Research Scientist, Bati Akdeniz Agricultural Research Institute, Turkey)
  • Richard Traini (BBSRC, now Research Officer, University of Nottingham))
  • Daniel von Wangenheim (Technology Specialist, 3i Imaging Company)
  • Emily Morris (Executive, Oxford Innovations)
  • Antoine Larrieu (Research Group Leader, Empyrean, Cambridge Business Park)

Examples of UK and international Research Collaborators include

  • Eilon Shani (Tel Aviv)
  • Thorsten Hamann (NTNU, Trondheim)
  • Christine Zeigler (Regensburg)
  • Valentin Couvreur (UC Louvain)
  • Jose Dinneny (Stanford)
  • Tom Beeckmann (VIB Ghent)
  • Xavier Draye (UC Louvain)
  • Francois Chaumont (UC Louvain)
  • Kim Johnson (La Trobe, Australia)
  • Ari Sadanadom (Durham)
  • Ian Dodd (Lancaster)
  • Kathryn Lilley (Cambridge)
  • Andy Jones (Liverpool)
  • Matthew Reynolds (CIMMYT)
  • Laurent Laplaze (IRD Montpellier)
  • Alexis Grondin (IRD Montpellier)
  • Ndjido Kane (ISRA, Senegal)
  • Tom Bennett (Leeds)
  • Amelia Henry (IRRI)

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