CURRENT RESEARCH

Research in my laboratory concerns signal transduction processes that regulate plant growth and stress responses. One major focus of our current research is to understand the role of membrane lipids and phospholipases in signaling cascades. Specifically, we are interested in: i) identifying and characterizing enzymes that generate lipid messengers, ii) defining downstream targets of lipid signaling pathways, iii) elucidating the relationship and networks of different signaling processes in hormonal and stress responses, and iv) determining the physiological functions of lipid-mediated signaling. In addition, we are applying knowledge gained from the above studies to manipulating crop plants for improving stress tolerance and seed oil quality and yield. Integrated approaches of molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, stress physiology, functional genomics, and metabolomics are employed in our research.