Faculty Member

Profile

Research Interests

Plants have the unique property to fix carbon dioxide into sugars and the entire human population is directly dependent on them as vital sources of oxygen, food, and other economically important products. Abiotic and biotic challenges pose serious risks to plant growth and crop production worldwide. Therefore, understanding how plants activate defense responses against environmental stresses represents a tremendous opportunity to improve plant yield and meet the agricultural output goals to feed the predicted ~10 billion (1010) human population by 2050. Insect pests in particular pose a significant threat to plant yield, crop production and food supply. Recent reports estimate that one-third of all crop losses are due to insect herbivory on major grain crops such as wheat, rice and maize (Deutsch et al 2018; Science). Harmful effects of insecticides on human health, environment and increasing insecticide resistance are further areas of concern for farmers and policymakers around the world. Our research focus is to study early signaling events during plant-insect interaction in model system Arabidopsis and crop plants. We will employ genetics, biochemistry and cell biology approaches to study defense signaling pathways. Fundamental understanding of plant defense responses against insect pathogens will enable us to generate sustainable strategies to tackle global challenges such as food security and environmental protection.