March 14, 2004:  St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes the article "From Green to Clean" on research in the Jez and Smith labs.  Click here for the PDF.   March 19, 2005: Congratulations to Kiani Arkus for the "Best Undergraduate Presentation Award" at the American Society of Plant Biology (Midwest Section) Meeting.  Kiani, a Wash. U. undergrad and former NSF-REU intern at the Danforth Center, presented her work on chlorophyllase, an enzyme involved in chlorophyll degradation.   Summer, 2005: The Jez Lab and Honorary Members from Divergence (left to right): Lavanya, Katherine, Billy (Divergence), Joe, Kathy (Divergence), Becky. Missing: Kiani. Photo courtesy of Kyle Taylor (Wang Lab). March 24, 2006: Kiani was awarded an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund SUMR Program Fellowship for research during the summer of 2006.   July 16, 2006: St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on the Pfizer-Solutia STARS Program. Click here for the article.   July 26, 2006: Joe was named a recipient of the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Click here for the White House press release. Click for a larger version February 1, 2007: Kumaran received an ASBMB Postdoctoral Travel Award and Kiani an Undergraduate Student Travel Award for the 2007 Experimental Biology Meeting in Washington, DC. March 29-April 2, 2007: First Huazhong Agricultural University-Donald Danforth Plant Science Center Bilateral Symposium on Crop Functional Genomics in Wuhan, China.

April 11, 2007: Amy was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship by the American Society of Plant Biologists.

July 23, 2007: At the 2007 Phytochemical Society of North America meeting, Joe received an Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award. These awards are presented by the Society to promising young investigators in plant biochemistry each year. In addition, Kiani won the Best Undergraduate Poster Award, presented by Prof. Zenk (see photo).

Summer, 2007: The Jez lab.

Septermber 29, 2007: Kumaran was a speaker at the 27th Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference in Chicago, where he presented his work on protein-protein interactions in plant cysteine biosynthesis. February 8, 2008: St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes an article "Company Turns to Danforth Plant Science Center to Develop a Green Plastic" on the collaboration between the Danforth Center and Metabolix that is funded by the Missouri Life Science Trust Fund. Click here for PDF March 18, 2008: Matthew was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship by the American Society of Plant Biologists. April 2008, Joe joins the Editorial Board of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. June 7-12, 2008: The Summer Institute in Plant Biology: Proteomics and Metabolomics in Wuhan, China (with a brief detour to Shanghai). June 28, 2008: Amy receives an ASPB-SURF Travel Award to present her ASPB-SURF fellowship research on phenylalanine ammonia lyase at the ASPB meeting in Merida, Mexico. July 1, 2008, Joe appointed as an Assistant Professor of Biology at Washington University July 30 - August 1, 2008: The Banff Conference on Plant Metabolism. Summer 2008, The Jez Lab February 1-6, 2009: Congratulations to Naveen, a visiting scientist from the National Institute for Plant Genome Research in New Delhi, India, who received a Travel Award to the Gordon Research Conference on Plant Lipids, in Galveston, TX. February 11, 2009: Progress of Lab Construction at Washington University: February, 2009: Congratulations to Matt and Amy who received Travel Awards to attend the ASPB meeting in Honolulu, HI. Matt will be presenting his work on cyanoalanine synthase and Amy her work on engineering bioplastics production. March 2009: Joe joins the Fulbright Specialist Program. Summer 2009: The Lab... missing Naveen and Leia July 2009: Members of the Lab and Danforth Center join Dr. Danforth after receiving the 2009 ASPB Leadership in Science Public Service Award in Honolulu. August 18, 2009: Alex Markov was selected to receive the "Pfizer Award for Excellence in Research" for his STARS program paper.