The Plant Genome Honors the Late Dr. Ronald Phillips

Dr. Ronald Phillips was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, past president of CSSA, CSSA and ASA Fellow, recipient of the CSSA Presidential Award, former Chief Scientist of the USDA, mentor to many graduate students and postdoctoral scientists, and an early supporter of the establishment of The Plant Genome.

An upcoming special section in The Plant Genome led by Drs. Roberto Tuberosa (University of Bologna, Italy), Shawn Kaeppler (University of Wisconsin–Madison), and Sandra Milach (Corteva Agriscience), aims to honor Dr. Phillips by collecting research from authors that either collaborated with him or built their research programs based on his many contributions to the fields of plant genetics, breeding, and biotechnology. The special section intends to cover broad topics on crop genetics and genomics and application of biotechnology to crop improvement.

The editors encourage contributions on the following topics: 

• Improvement of plant transformation technology 
• Molecular genetic mapping and QTLome 
• Genomic selection in plant breeding Genome evolution and structure 
• Pan‐genomes and pan‐transcriptomes 
• Epigenomics 
• Chromosome engineering and gene editing

The call for submissions opens Jan. 30, 2024. Papers should be submitted by Aug. 30, 2024 via The Plant Genome ScholarOne submission portal: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plantgenome, noting “Tribute to Ron Phillips: Crop Genetics, Genomics and Biotechnology” as the special section type.