Biological sciences professor Magdalena Bezanilla has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to a March 27 announcement. Bezanilla is among nearly 449 scientists, engineers, and innovators elected as 2025 AAAS Fellows in recognition of her contributions to plant biology.
The honor highlights Bezanilla’s pioneering research on plant cell growth and development. Her work aims to answer how cells shape themselves and their environment, a question that has guided much of her career. Understanding these mechanisms could help scientists engineer plants with specific traits such as climate resilience or improved suitability for biofuel production.
Bezanilla’s laboratory has been at the forefront in using moss as a model system to uncover molecular mechanisms underpinning cell structure. “I really don’t think there’s another organism that allows us to do what we can do with moss,” said Bezanilla. “We can watch the plant develop from a single cell over the period of days to weeks under the microscope and get an unparalleled view of development at the resolution of a single cell.”
Her team developed multi-gene silencing in 2009, enabling groups of co-working genes to be simultaneously silenced so their functions could be studied together. More recently, her group has refined genetic editing tools tailored for use in moss. These innovations have allowed researchers to track proteins within living cells and observe how they are delivered during growth.
A study led by Bezanilla in 2023 identified cellulose synthase-like D as crucial for plant growth due to its likely role in generating cellulose, while another recent project revealed how calcium ions create chemical maps guiding where cells add material during expansion. Ongoing projects focus on receptors that regulate plants’ responses to stress—work that may improve crop resilience.
Bezanilla’s achievements have earned her multiple honors including fellowship with the American Society of Plant Biologists and awards such as the National Science Foundation CAREER award and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. “Professor Bezanilla’s research has been key to elucidating the underlying mechanisms that control cell shape, and this award is fitting recognition of her importance to the field,” said Jane Lipson, associate dean for the sciences.
