Keith Duncan

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Talk title: Using lab-based X-ray microscopy for multiscale 3D imaging in plant biology

Keith Duncan is a research scientist in Dr. Chris Topp's lab at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Centre in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), and is Director of their X-ray imaging facility. Prior to the Danforth Centre, Keith joined Dr. Rick Howard's lab in 1990 at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware (USA), using light, laser, electron, and X-ray imaging technologies to study all aspects of agricultural cell biology. When that facility was closed in 2016 as a result of a corporate merger, Keith moved to St. Louis to join Chris Topp's lab and manage the newly opened X-ray imaging facility, one of the first in North America dedicated exclusively to studying plant biology. Keith has been using X-ray computed tomography (XCT) to study plant biology both above and below the soil line using conventional XCT as well as X-ray microscopy (XRM). In particular, Keith's research in the Topp lab is focused on using X-ray tomography to study root system architecture and root-microbe interactions. Keith is also involved in multiple collaborative research projects using XRM to study the morphology and cell biology of numerous plant structures.