Biology Department Seminar

Research interest of our lab is to understand the molecular mechanisms regulating plant responses to the environment. Two major projects in our lab are: a) molecular analysis of plant-pathogen interactions, and b) functional genomics of receptor kinases. For the first project we have used both forward and reverse genetic approaches to identify and characterized several Arabidopsis genes critical for defense against pathogens. For the second project we are developing Arabidopsis plants expressing chimeric receptor kinases which can sense various agents of interest, and induce visible response (e.g., fluoresce green due to expression of the green fluorescence protein). We hope to develop "Chimeric Receptor Kits" (CR Kits), suites of plants containing a selection of custom response circuits, capable of detecting and reporting exposure to a range of elicitors. CR Kits will provide research communities with a unique and invaluable resource to detect variety of ligands and to understand how plants sense and respond to the environment.