For PhD and postdoctoral opportunities, and interest in potential collaborations, please contact me at the above email address.
Research Interests
Unlike animals, plants cannot move away from adverse conditions. Plants face increased threats from fungal and bacterial pathogens, some of which are gaining advantage as the climate becomes more favourable to them. To protect crops from major losses we need to understand how plants defend themselves and how we can exploit this.
Our laboratory addresses the important question of how plants respond to pathogen attack. This research will inform us as to where molecular biology and breeding approaches could be directed to optimise the existing cellular machinery to boost crop plant resistance to pathogens.
Research: Technical Summary
The lab uses both model and crop (tomato, brassica) plants to understand how pathogens are recognised and how plant immunity is supressed by pathogens.
We combine genome-wide approaches such as mRNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq and MNase-seq with proteomics, advance imaging, and biochemistry to enhance our understanding of how activation of Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRRs) and Resistance (R) proteins leads to plant immunity.
This research informs our efforts to engineering crop plants with durable resistance and increased crop yields.
Professor (2021-present), School of Life Sciences, University of 海角社区, UK
Royal Society University Research Fellow (2012-2021), School of Life Sciences, University of 海角社区, UK
Post-doctoral researcher (2011-2012), The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK
Post-doctoral researcher (2008-2011), John Innes Centre, UK
Post-doctoral researcher (2005-2008), The Sainsbury Laboratory, UK
PhD in Biochemistry (2005), University of California Riverside, US
Researcher (1997-1999), Institute of Subtropical Plants and Olive Tree, Greece
BSc (1996), School of Agriculture, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece
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Funder
Award start
Award end
Bridging The Gap Between In Vitro And Whole-Plant Herbicide Screening Using Biosensors (BBSRC iCASE Studentship)
Syngenta
September 2026
September 2030
A broadly accessible and versatile spinning disc microscope to probe biological processes across temporal and spatial scales (BBSRC Alert 2025)
BBSRC
August 2025
July 2026
Nucleoside counter-decoys; metabolic interference in plant defence
BBSRC
January 2022
March 2026
Xanthomonas plant diseases: mitigating existing, emerging and future threats to UK agriculture
BBSRC
October 2020
July 2024
Improvement of multiple agronomic traits by impediment of a histone acetyltransferase - extension and supplement (COVID-19) to Research Fellows Enhancement Award 2017 56308 current end date 2 Sept 2022
Royal Society
September 2022
March 2023
Phospho-proteomic Analysis of Microbe-Associated Molecular Patterns (MAMPs) Signalling in Plant Immunity - A small MLSRF grant
Medical and Life Sciences Research Fund
May 2021
April 2022
WISB extension Oct 21 - March 22
BBSRC
October 2021
March 2022
海角社区 Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre (WISB) extension - related to 46082
BBSRC
April 2020
March 2022
Engineering synthetic 14-3-3 proteins to achieve broad-spectrum disease resistance in plants Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship Alberto Macho
Royal Society
December 2018
December 2021
Role of chromatin remodelling in Plant-Microbe interactions (Covid-19 Supplement to URF UF160546 costed under 55719 and renewal 52643)
Royal Society
October 2020
September 2021
Ion mobility mass spectrometer for proteomics facility. ALERT19
BBSRC
July 2020
June 2021
Research Fellows Enhancement Award 2017 - Improvement of multiple agronomic traits by impediment of a histone acetyltransferase
Royal Society
December 2017
March 2021
University Research Fellowship 2017 Renewal - Role of chromatin remodelling in Plant-Microbe interactions
Royal Society
October 2017
September 2020
海角社区 Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre (WISB)
BBSRC
November 2014
May 2020
Enhancing food security in Ethiopia by breeding enset plants resistant to Xanthomonas Wilt
Royal Society
December 2017
July 2019
Royal Society Fellowship - Role of chromatin in plant microbe interactions
Royal Society
October 2012
September 2017
Royal Society Research Fellowship: Role of chromatin remodelling in plant microbe interactions
Royal Society
October 2012
September 2017
Vacation Studentship for Breagha Magill - The role of truncated R proteins in plant-pathogen interactions
British Society for Plant Pathology
June 2017
August 2017
Molecular mechanism regulating MAPKs activation within resistance complexes
BBSRC
July 2014
June 2017
Regulation of polar growth in plant roots: the interplay of signalling and vesicle trafficking
Medical and Life Sciences Research Fund
August 2015
July 2016
Study of defense mechanisms in Arachis hypogea against its major pests; British Council: Newton Bhabha PhD Placement Programme award - Pratyusha Sambangi
British Council
April 2015
February 2016
Developing interdisciplinary omics tools for organelle and cell type-specific analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana
New Phytologist Trust
September 2014
September 2014
MIBTP Director
Associate Director of PGR
I am happy to receive enquires about PG Research projects in my group, please contact me at the above email address.