Projects
The fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (Fol) causes a devastating wilt disease of tomato crops that has hitherto been managed by breeding for disease resistant cultivars.
Theme
- Host-microbe biology
- Plant-microbe interactions
ungus Fusarium oxysporum causes devastating wilt diseases of many important crop plants including banana/plantain, cotton, potato, tomato, capsicum, beans, peas, chickpeas and melons. However, individual pathogenic isolates of F. oxysporum are highly specific for a particular species of host plant.
Theme
- Plant-microbe interactions
- Host-microbe biology
The aim of this project is to identify mechanisms that contribute to highly efficient biological nitrogen fixation in legumes through symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, including under future climate change scenarios.
Theme
- Plant-microbe interactions
- Host-microbe biology
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Ulrike Mathesius, Supervisor
C4 plants turbocharge their photosynthetic process by using a biochemical pump to elevate CO2 deep in the leaves in the bundle sheath cells.
Theme
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
Student intake
Open for Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Florence Danila, Researcher
- Maria Ermakova, Researcher
- Maria Ermakova, Supervisor
- Robert Furbank, Supervisor
Climate variability is predicted to increase with climate change and the ability to acclimate to environmental perturbations and extremes has been widely described as having an adaptive benefit resulting in increased fitness.
Theme
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
- Plant environmental biology and functional ecology
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
Join us to help discover how the water and ion channel features of plant aquaporins are regulated and how this relates to osmotic stress tolerance mechanisms in plants.
Theme
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
Plant pathogens grow in the extracellular spaces of plant issues. Many fungal and oomycete pathogens, including stripe rust, form specialized feeding structures known as haustoria that penetrate host cell walls. Project: Characterising the genomes of wheat stripe rust. Project: Protein function in plant immunity
Theme
- Host-microbe biology
- Infection and immunity
- Parasitology
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- John Rathjen, Principal investigator
New sequencing technology now allows genomic data to be assembled from hundreds to thousands of individuals from family and population samples in non model organisms.
Theme
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
- Plant environmental biology and functional ecology
- Phylogenetics, population genetics and biodiversity
- Evolutionary genetics and genomics
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Justin Borevitz, Supervisor
A combined bioimaging analysis and complementary multi-'omics approach to map the genetic mechanism underlying plasmodesmata formation and regulation using fluorescent protein tagged-plasmodesmata lines of C3 and C4 crops.
Theme
- Membrane transporters and channels
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
Student intake
Open for Summer scholar, Honours, Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Florence Danila, Supervisor
- William Yao, Support officer
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical in many facets of plant biology, where they mediate gene silencing processes by acting as sequence-specific guides of silencing complexes.
Theme
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
- Evolutionary genetics and genomics
Fungi produce many biological active compounds. What are they and what do they do?
Theme
- Plant-microbe interactions
Student intake
Open for Honours, Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Peter Solomon, Supervisor
- Peter Solomon, Researcher
Strategies for efficiently engineering the small subunit of higher plant Rubisco are being developed.
Theme
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
Listed below is an example of projects available in the Solomon Lab. Please contact Peter to discuss these further or other possibilities (note that the skills gained in the project are shown in brackets after the project)
Theme
- Plant-microbe interactions
- Phylogenetics, population genetics and biodiversity
- Evolutionary genetics and genomics
- Bioinformatics and bio-mathematical modelling
Student intake
Open for Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Peter Solomon, Supervisor
- Peter Solomon, Collaborator
We constantly try to identify new proteins that are involved in plant immunity, and use molecular techniques to understand their interaction partners and how they work together. The sorts of proteins we are interested are pathogen receptors, components of signal transduction pathways that elaborate the immune response, and pathogen virulence molecules called effectors that seek to destroy immunity. We use cutting edge biochemical techniques including high resolution mass spectrometry to perform these studies. It is a fascinating area because the pathogens always seek to evolve new proteins to overcome host immunity, and the plants must change their receptors and use innovative mechanisms to trap the pathogens.
Theme
- Host-microbe biology
- Infection and immunity
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
- Plant-microbe interactions
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- John Rathjen, Supervisor
The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of the impacts of two key drivers of global climate change – rising temperatures and increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide ([CO2]) – on leaf respiration (Rd).
Theme
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
- Plant environmental biology and functional ecology
Student intake
Open for PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Eric Dusenge, Supervisor
- Owen Atkin, Principal investigator
This project investigates how stress-induced splice variants of nuclear-encoded genes lead to chloroplast-targeted protein isoforms with differential biochemical, structural and/or molecular properties. The impact of these changes on chloroplast function in response to environmental stress will be investigated.
Theme
- Plant genetics and gene regulation
- Photosynthesis and plant energy biology
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, Master, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Kai Chan, Supervisor
- Su Yin Phua , Support officer
Design the Ultimate Cellular Security System!
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Barry Pogson, Principal investigator
- Marten Moore, Researcher
Are You Ready to Film RNA in Action Inside Living Plant Cells?
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Barry Pogson, Principal investigator
- Marten Moore, Researcher
Invent a Kinder, Gentler Way to Engineer Plant Cells!
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Barry Pogson, Principal investigator
- Marten Moore, Researcher
Create the GPS System for Plant Cells!
Student intake
Open for Bachelor, Honours, PhD students
Status
Current
People
- Barry Pogson, Principal investigator
- Marten Moore, Researcher
- Rebeccah Tyrrell, Researcher