Keiko Torii

Keiko Torii ( 鳥 居 啓 子 , Torii Keiko) is a Japanese

plant scientist and academic teaching at the University Keiko Torii
of Texas at Austin as of September 2019. Born 1965 (age 59–60)
Tokyo, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Research Alma mater University of Tsukuba (Master of
Science)
Torii researches stem cell maintenance and the cell-to- University of Tsukuba (PhD)
cell communication required to correctly pattern tissue
Awards Saruhashi Prize(2015)
during development, focusing on stomatal
Asahi Prize (2021) [1]
development as a model.[2] Her work on cell-to-cell
communication has also focused on the mechanisms Scientific career
that determine organ size and shape in plants.[3] Her Fields Research of Plant development,
achievements include discoveries of key signaling Stem cell
ligands, receptor kinase signaling pathways, and Institutions University of Texas at Austin
master regulatory transcription factors that specify Institute of Transformative Bio-
stomatal patterning and differentiation.[4] Her research Molecules, Nagoya University
and collaboration ranges from cell-cell signaling in
Website www.plant-stomata.org (http://ww
plant development to maintenance of lineage-specific
w.plant-stomata.org) ( Keiko Torii
stem cells, influence of extrinsic peptide and chemical
Laboratory, University of Texas at
signals in cell-fate decisions and patterning, and
Austin )
creation of an artificial ligand–receptor system to
manipulate plant developmental signaling.[4] Through
her works, she aims to elucidate how functional tissue patterns are generated using cross-disciplinary
approaches.[3] Together with organic chemists and molecular structural theoreticians, she is developing
artificial and orthogonal ligand-receptor systems with novel activities to understand and manipulate
signaling pathways controlling plant development.[3]

Early life
Torii was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1965. She completed her B.S. (1987) and M.S. (1989) degrees in
Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Institute of Biological Sciences at University of Tsukuba, Japan.[5]
She also obtained a PhD (1993) from the University of Tsukuba, researching seed development in
carrots.[6]

Career
She became a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology (formerly Botany),
University of Washington in 1999 and Associate Professor in 2005. Then, in 2009, she was promoted to
Full Professor at Department of Biology with an affiliate faculty position at the Institute of Stem Cell and
Regenerative Medicine, University of Washington. She was also a PRESTO researcher, Japan Science
and Technology Agency, Japan (2009–2012).[7] In 2011, she received the title of College of Arts and
Sciences Endowed Distinguished Professor of Biology, University of Washington (2011-2019), and has
also been an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2011–present).[2] In September 2019,
she has relocated to the University of Texas at Austin, where she is a Professor of Molecular Biosciences
and holds the Johnson & Johnson Centennial Chair in Plant Cell Biology.[3] She keeps her position in
University of Washington as Affiliate Professor, and, since 2013, she has been an Oversea Principal
Investigator and Visiting Professor at the World Premier Research Initiative, Institute of Transformative
Biomolecules (WPI-ITbM), Nagoya University, Japan.[8]

She has provided extensive service on editorial and advisory boards and in editorial roles for journals,
including Plant Physiology and as Editor-in-chief of The Arabidopsis Book.[4]

Awards and honors

2008 – JSPS prize for 'Mechanisms of Stomatal Patterning and Differentiation in Plants' [9]
2012 – Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) [10]
2015 – Saruhashi Prize[11]
2021 – Asahi Prize[1]
2023 - Stephen Hales Prize from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)[4]

Publications
Source:[3]

Putarjunan, Aarthi; Ruble, Jim; Srivastava, Ashutosh; Zhao, Chunzhao; Rychel, Amanda L.;
Hofstetter, Alex K.; Tang, Xiaobo; Zhu, Jian-Kang; Tama, Florence; Zheng, Ning; Torii, Keiko
U. (July 2019). "Bipartite anchoring of SCREAM enforces stomatal initiation by coupling
MAP kinases to SPEECHLESS" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668613).
Nature Plants. 5 (7): 742–754. doi:10.1038/s41477-019-0440-x (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F
s41477-019-0440-x). PMC 6668613 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC666861
3). PMID 31235876 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31235876).
Perraki, Artemis; DeFalco, Thomas A.; Derbyshire, Paul; Avila, Julian; Séré, David; Sklenar,
Jan; Qi, Xingyun; Stransfeld, Lena; Schwessinger, Benjamin; Kadota, Yasuhiro; Macho,
Alberto P.; Jiang, Shushu; Couto, Daniel; Torii, Keiko U.; Menke, Frank L. H.; Zipfel, Cyril
(September 2018). "Phosphocode-dependent functional dichotomy of a common co-
receptor in plant signalling" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6250601).
Nature. 561 (7722): 248–252. Bibcode:2018Natur.561..248P (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/
abs/2018Natur.561..248P). doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0471-x (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41
586-018-0471-x). PMC 6250601 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6250601).
PMID 30177827 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30177827).
Torii, Keiko U.; Hagihara, Shinya; Uchida, Naoyuki; Takahashi, Koji (October 2018).
"Harnessing synthetic chemistry to probe and hijack auxin signaling" (https://doi.org/10.111
1%2Fnph.15337). New Phytologist. 220 (2): 417–424. doi:10.1111/nph.15337 (https://doi.or
g/10.1111%2Fnph.15337). PMID 30088268 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30088268).
S2CID 51935633 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:51935633).
Fendrych, Matyáš; Akhmanova, Maria; Merrin, Jack; Glanc, Matouš; Hagihara, Shinya;
Takahashi, Koji; Uchida, Naoyuki; Torii, Keiko U.; Friml, Jiří (July 2018). "Rapid and
reversible root growth inhibition by TIR1 auxin signalling" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC6104345). Nature Plants. 4 (7): 453–459. doi:10.1038/s41477-018-0190-1 (http
s://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41477-018-0190-1). PMC 6104345 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p
mc/articles/PMC6104345). PMID 29942048 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29942048).
Han, Soon-Ki; Qi, Xingyun; Sugihara, Kei; Dang, Jonathan H.; Endo, Takaho A.; Miller,
Kristen L.; Kim, Eun-Deok; Miura, Takashi; Torii, Keiko U. (May 2018). "MUTE Directly
Orchestrates Cell-State Switch and the Single Symmetric Division to Create Stomata" (http
s://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/03/21/286443.full.pdf) (PDF). Developmental
Cell. 45 (3): 303–315.e5. doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2018.04.010 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.dev
cel.2018.04.010). PMID 29738710 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29738710).
Uchida, Naoyuki; Takahashi, Koji; Iwasaki, Rie; Yamada, Ryotaro; Yoshimura, Masahiko;
Endo, Takaho A.; Kimura, Seisuke; Zhang, Hua; Nomoto, Mika; Tada, Yasuomi; Kinoshita,
Toshinori; Itami, Kenichiro; Hagihara, Shinya; Torii, Keiko U. (March 2018). "Chemical
hijacking of auxin signaling with an engineered auxin–TIR1 pair" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g
ov/pmc/articles/PMC5812785). Nature Chemical Biology. 14 (3): 299–305.
doi:10.1038/nchembio.2555 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnchembio.2555). PMC 5812785 (htt
ps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5812785). PMID 29355850 (https://pubmed.ncb
i.nlm.nih.gov/29355850).
Qi, Xingyun; Torii, Keiko U. (December 2018). "Hormonal and environmental signals guiding
stomatal development" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5819259). BMC
Biology. 16 (1): 21. doi:10.1186/s12915-018-0488-5 (https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12915-018
-0488-5). PMC 5819259 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5819259).
PMID 29463247 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29463247). S2CID 3389232 (https://api.s
emanticscholar.org/CorpusID:3389232).
Qi, Xingyun; Han, Soon-Ki; Dang, Jonathan H; Garrick, Jacqueline M; Ito, Masaki;
Hofstetter, Alex K; Torii, Keiko U (7 March 2017). "Autocrine regulation of stomatal
differentiation potential by EPF1 and ERECTA-LIKE1 ligand-receptor signaling" (https://ww
w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358980). eLife. 6: e24102. doi:10.7554/eLife.24102 (h
ttps://doi.org/10.7554%2FeLife.24102). PMC 5358980 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art
icles/PMC5358980). PMID 28266915 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28266915).
Ziadi, Asraa; Uchida, Naoyuki; Kato, Hiroe; Hisamatsu, Rina; Sato, Ayato; Hagihara, Shinya;
Itami, Kenichiro; Torii, Keiko U. (24 August 2017). "Discovery of synthetic small molecules
that enhance the number of stomata: C–H functionalization chemistry for plant biology".
Chemical Communications. 53 (69): 9632–9635. doi:10.1039/C7CC04526C (https://doi.org/
10.1039%2FC7CC04526C). PMID 28809975 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28809975).
Hirakawa, Yuki; Shinohara, Hidefumi; Welke, Kai; Irle, Stephan; Matsubayashi, Yoshikatsu;
Torii, Keiko U.; Uchida, Naoyuki (6 February 2017). "Cryptic bioactivity capacitated by
synthetic hybrid plant peptides" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5303819).
Nature Communications. 8 (1): 14318. Bibcode:2017NatCo...814318H (https://ui.adsabs.har
vard.edu/abs/2017NatCo...814318H). doi:10.1038/ncomms14318 (https://doi.org/10.1038%
2Fncomms14318). PMC 5303819 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC530381
9). PMID 28165456 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28165456).
Tameshige, Toshiaki; Okamoto, Satoshi; Lee, Jin Suk; Aida, Mitsuhiro; Tasaka, Masao; Torii,
Keiko U.; Uchida, Naoyuki (September 2016). "A Secreted Peptide and Its Receptors Shape
the Auxin Response Pattern and Leaf Margin Morphogenesis" (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.
cub.2016.07.014). Current Biology. 26 (18): 2478–2485. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.07.014 (http
s://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cub.2016.07.014). PMID 27593376 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go
v/27593376). S2CID 3982527 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:3982527).
Lee, Jin Suk; Hnilova, Marketa; Maes, Michal; Lin, Ya-Chen Lisa; Putarjunan, Aarthi; Han,
Soon-Ki; Avila, Julian; Torii, Keiko U. (June 2015). "Competitive binding of antagonistic
peptides fine-tunes stomatal patterning" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC453
2310). Nature. 522 (7557): 439–443. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..439L (https://ui.adsabs.harvar
d.edu/abs/2015Natur.522..439L). doi:10.1038/nature14561 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fnatu
 re14561). PMC 4532310 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532310).
PMID 26083750 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26083750).

References
1. "THE ASAHI PRIZE" (https://web.archive.org/web/20220106223404/https://www.asahi.com/
corporate/award/asahi/12737983). The Asahi Shimbun Company. Archived from the original
(https://www.asahi.com/corporate/award/asahi/12737983) on 2022-01-06. Retrieved
2022-01-06.
2. "Keiko U. Torii" (https://www.hhmi.org/scientists/keiko-u-torii). HHMI.org.
3. "Torii, Keiko – Molecular Biosciences – CNS Directory" (https://cns.utexas.edu/directory/ite
m/16-molecular-biosciences/3764-torii-keiko?Itemid=349). cns.utexas.edu. Retrieved
2019-12-02.
4. "Stephen Hales Prize 2023 Winner: Keiko Torii" (https://aspb.org/awards-funding/aspb-awar
ds/stephen-hales-prize/). Awards & Funding. The American Society of Plant Biologists.
Retrieved 2023-07-12.
5. Torii, Keiko U. (November 2013). "Keiko U. Torii" (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cub.2013.08.0
32). Current Biology. 23 (21): R943 – R944. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.08.032 (https://doi.org/1
0.1016%2Fj.cub.2013.08.032). PMID 24354015 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2435401
5). S2CID 5156949 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5156949).
6. Keiko, Torii (1993). Cell differentiation of the outermost cells of developing endosperm in
carrot (Thesis) (in Japanese). hdl:2241/5190 (https://hdl.handle.net/2241%2F5190).
7. "Research History" (https://researchmap.jp/stomata/research_experience?lang=en). Keiko
Torii. researchmap. Retrieved 2023-07-13.
8. "Visiting Professor Keiko Torii, Group of Plant Pattern Formation" (https://www.bio.nagoya-u.
ac.jp/english/laboratory/ppf.html). Nagoya University. The Institute of Transformative Bio-
Molecules (ITbM). Retrieved 2023-05-29.
9. "JSPS PRIZE – Japan Society for the Promotion of Science" (https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/
e-jsps-prize/awards_5th_03.html). www.jsps.go.jp.
10. "AAAS names 11 UW researchers as fellows" (http://www.washington.edu/news/2012/11/2
9/aaas-names-11-uw-researchers-as-fellows/).
11. "Nagoya University Awards" (http://en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/awards/prof_keiko_torii_selected_to_r
eceive_saruhashi_prize_for_eminent_female_scientist.html). en.nagoya-u.ac.jp.

External links
Torii Laboratory (https://www.plant-stomata.org/)

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