Research Interests

I am a plant biology lecturer/ assistant professor at the School of Biological Sciences and associate investigator at the Biomolecular Interaction Centre (BIC), University of Canterbury, New Zealand, focussing on molecular plant biology and plant biochemistry, with a focus on plant-microbe interactions, abiotic stress adaptations and relevant signal-transduction pathways. I am particularly interested in how climate change effects plant-pathogen interactions and disease outbreaks.

In my lab, we are mainly interested how pathogenic oomycetes and bacteria (soil- and air-born) interact with the plant. In order to successfully colonize their hosts and subvert immune responses, plant pathogens secrete molecules, so‐called effectors. In my group, we focus on translocated effector proteins and their target proteins in the host plant. Additionally, we are elucidating how abiotic factors effect plant health and immunity to improve future agricultural systems and ecosystem protection.
Projects range from applied to fundamental research topics, using a wide range of techniques:
• Confocal microscopy for live cell imaging (Localization, FRET-FLIM, Ca and ROS signalling)
• Dual-flow RootChips
• Phenotyping
• Co-Immunoprecipitation, Western blotting, EMSA
• Mass spectrometry
• Y2H
• DAPseq, RNAseq