Plant genetics and gene regulation

Genome content and the regulation of gene expression are crucial for plant development, form & function. At ANU we use molecular genetics to understand gene regulation, epigenetic control processes, evolution and gene/protein function. These approaches are used to study such problems as organ development, plant-pathogen interactions & plant energy biology.

Project Groups
Reading the history of mutations in individual plants
Abiotic stress signalling, developmental programming and plant adaptation
Agrochemical control of stress signalling pathways for enhanced stress tolerance
Bioinformatics and gene discovery in wheat rust pathogens
C4 Rice Project
Can seedling screens of energy use efficiency in wheat transfer to yield in the field?
Carotenoid derivatives as chloroplast signals
Characterizing the mRNA-protein “interactome” of plants
CO2 acquisition by cyanobacteria and plants, & Synthetic Biology strategies for transplanting cyanobacterial CO2 Concentrating mechanism parts in crop plants
Control of meristem differentiation and plant architecture in legumes
Coordination of chloroplast signals with cellular secondary messengers during abiotic and biotic stresses
Decrypting chloroplast signalling networks in C4 photosynthesis at cell type-resolution
Developing molecular tools for functional analysis of microRNA-mediated gene silencing
Ecology, genetics and physiology of animal-plant interactions
Energy use and the plant canopy - measuring local respiration trends.
Engineering microRNA pathways for broad-spectrum plant disease resistance.
Enhancing carotenoid levels in cereals by esterification
Expression of modified tobacco and foreign Rubiscos in tobacco chloroplasts
Factors impacting gene silencing efficacy in plants
Genetics and evolution of variation in chemical defence against herbivores
Genetics to improve production of essential oils from Australian trees
Genome wide association mapping
How do effector proteins from necrotrophic fungi cause disease in plants
Improving nitrogen use efficiency in cereals
Investigating adaptive genomic variation underlying drought tolerance in Eucalyptus
Investigating the genetic architecture of thermal acclimation of leaf energy metabolism using GWAS
Landscape genomics
Manipulating CO2 transport with aquaporins to improve photosynthesis
MicroRNA target recognition; the role of the target RNA secondary structure.
Novel small molecule regulators of animal development
Optimising energy use efficiency to increase wheat yield
Overcoming limitations in engineering the Rubisco small subunits in higher plant chloroplasts.
Pest resistance and sustainable plantation management of eucalypts
Protein function in plant immunity
Regulation of chloroplast function via alternative splicing in the nucleus
Rust resistance in Australian Myrtaceae
Student opportunites in the phenomic analysis of CO2 acquisition by cyanobacteria
Student opportunities in molecular analysis of CO2 acquisition by cyanobacteria
Student projects - additional topics for the future
The role of RNA binding proteins in post-transcriptional gene regulation and plant biology.
Understanding the role of peptide hormones in determining root architecture
What are novel mechanisms for regulating transcription, RNA turnover and protein translation
Wheat immunity and applied synthetic biology