This research project investigates how photoassimilates moves from source leaves to other sink tissues that accumulate large amounts of carbohydrates. Many sinks such as stem and seeds/grains rely on the accumulation of sugars and starch during their development as they mature and become storage tissue.

Most known examples of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) between eukaryotes are ancient. These events are identified primarily using phylogenetic methods on coding regions alone.

Zymoseptoria tritici is a host-specific necrotrophic pathogen, causing Septoria tritici blotch (STB) disease on wheat leaves. Although substantial efforts have been made to identify pathogenicity factors in Z. tritici, the genetic components contributing to the qualitative/quantitative virulence

Plant pathogens cause disease through secreted effector proteins, which act to modulate host physiology and promote infection. Often, effector proteins lack sequence identity to proteins of known function, or functional domains, making it impossible to infer function based on sequence alone.

The interactions of peptide ligands with leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases (LRR-RLKs) coordinate multiple plant biochemical pathways. Thus, there is a need for a simple method that identifies and validates peptide hormone-receptor pairings in vivo without disturbing native receptor complexes.

Photorespiratory metabolism is essential for plants to maintain functional photosynthesis in an oxygen-containing environment. Because the oxygenation reaction of Rubisco is followed by the loss of previously fixed carbon, photorespiration is often considered a wasteful process and considerable efforts are aimed at min