Vanessa Melino
Vanessa aims to reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment by understanding plant adaptation to nutrient stress and salinity and then using that information to develop new crops. She currently leads a program to domesticate a halophyte, Salicornia spp., as a seed oil crop for arid environments. This involves generating genomic, genetic and agronomic resources that have taken her around the globe. The curious ability of obligate halophytic plants to accumulate sodium without toxic effects led the team to identify and characterize proteins likely involved in vacuolar sodium sequestration as well as salt-stress induced stabilization of RNA/ribosomes. Her new research group at the University of Newcastle will dissect these proteins further as well as develop systems to study them in-planta.
Abstracts this author is presenting:
