Peer Schenk
Professor
School of Agriculture and Food Sciences
The University of Queensland
Australia
Biography
We use a Functional Genomics and Biodiscovery approach to study beneficial and parasitic interactions of plants with microorganisms. Arabidopsis is used as a model plant to study signalling pathways that enable plants to withstand pathogen attack or severe drought. The up- or down-regulation of specific key regulatory genes has led to disease resistance and drought tolerance, and this strategy is used to improve crop species. In our start-up company Nexgen Plants Pty Ltd, we are producing virus-resistant crops using a new molecular, non-GM approach (www.nexgenplants.com).
Research Interest
Plant and Microbial Biotechnology, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Environmental Transcriptomics, Algae Biotechnology, Sustainable Biofuel Production
Publications
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Richard ML, Lilia CC, Lara-Simone P, Ekaterina N, Gayathery, S, et al. (2017) An optimized transient dual luciferase assay for quantifying microRNA directed repression of targeted sequences. Frontiers in Plant Science.
