Making sense of the time and place of cells and regulatory action.
PhD, UC Riverside 2018 Salk Institute, Plant Biology Arabidopsis · single-cell · spatial trlee@salk.edu
Peer-reviewed publications{{ counts.papers }}
Invited talks and seminars20
Students mentored11
First-author papers6
The identity of a cell is the sum of inputs, which includes both cell type and cell activity. My research measures the cellular outputs to resolve these states at single-cell and spatial scales to understand how these states inform function.
Drag the slider to bring the cell-state annotation over the brightfield seedling. Following the curvature of the hook, distinct states are packed into single-cell files.
Each polygonal represents a segmented cell carrying its assigned state. Read the preprint.
A cellular reference for Arabidopsis from seed germination through seed set, of all major organs and developmental stage.
A collection of over 400,000 cells across ten developmental timepoints of seed, seedling, leaf, stem, flower, and silique development. For interactive access to our datasets visit our website
The apical hook lies at the intersection of cell type, development, and hormonal regulation. How do we define individual cells at this tripartite intersection, and what drives cell function in this structure?
The apical hook functions as a standing wave of cells - as cells migrate through this static structure, they are only present at any given position within the apical hook in the timeframe of minutes. Before cells migrate into the arch, they have already embarked along opposing developmental landscapes.
Hypoxia, drought recovery, immune priming: the population average hides the cells that infuence the outcome.
Understanding both when and where stress is regulated, from hypoxia to drought to biotic interaction, can set the physiological outcome of transient stress.
Nature 2025 — PRIMER cells · Nat. Comms 2025 — drought recovery
From model species, including Arabidopsis, to non-model species, including carnivorous plants
snRNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, epigenome and translatome profiling
What is the collective identity of a cell and how do we define it?
Full record on Google Scholar and ORCID.
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, 10010 N Torrey Pines Rd, La Jolla, CA 92037.
