Current projects
Research Philosophy
Climate change has increasingly threatening agricultural production worldwide. There is a growing awareness that plant hormonal signaling is not an encapsulated process, but instead is the result of traits encoded both in the genome of the plants as well as their associated microorganisms. In this way, the regulation of many plant hormones is highly permeable, with hormones and their precursors being produced, exchanged, and degraded both by plants and their associated microorganisms. As a result, plant hormonal networks can best be approached at a holobiont level, as a joint venture between plant- and microbiome-encoded traits. My research interest is to tap on the hologenome (plant and microorganism genome) pool to find the best match for proper plant hormonal balance to withstand in harsh conditions (such as drought condition, pathogen invasion, and heavy metals exposure) or enhanced phenotype (e.g. high yield, more nutrition plants).
1) Viroplant
VIROPLANT (Virome NGS analysis of pests and pathogens for plant protection) will develop new biocontrol agents based on viruses infecting phytopathogenic bacteria, fungi, insect pests and insect vectors to provide new tools to protect crop plants. in Utrecht University, we use nanotechnology to enhance the virulence of synthetic bacteriophage consortium and control an important plant pathogen, Ralstonia solanacearum.
2) Using the microbiome to build the plant stress tolerance
a) Manipulating the plant drought tolerance by the associated microbiome
-Using experimental evolution to improve the plant beneficial traits in the associated microbiome.
-Using Genome editing to target the plant hormones in a targeted way
b) Improved nutritious vegetables by targeting the microbiome at the community level
-Experimental evolution platform to build a microbiome for enhanced nutrient plants
-Developing the geochemical equilibrium model for rhizosphere nutrients based on microbiome enhancement
3) Enhanced plant microbiome to tackle the hidden hunger
We seek to reach higher microbiome-mediated plant nutritional value either by increasing the solubility of nutrients in the soil, increase their uptake from the roots, and translocation to target organs.
a) Targeted plant hologenome editing for plant trait enhancement (manuscript on the last stage of revision, new physiologist). In this study, we showed that the plant-associated microbiome can rescue the missing gene in the plant.
b) SPARC project/ Joint project of UU and Aligarh university of India. Harness the power of microbes to fight hidden hunger. Currently, two Ph.D. students (Mahvash Haroon and Shaibi Saleem) work on this project. The project focus on the bacterial genes and function responsible for Zn uptake and transport in the vegetable plants.
c) Increase plant nutritional value in vegetables by altering the plant-soil feedback cycle. In this project, we use the bacterial functions to stimulate plant exudates to provide support for plant microbiome and also bolster plant nutritional value, in an organic vegetable farming context.