Penny Tricker

Biography

My research focuses on understanding the signatures of drought and heat tolerance in the genomes and epigenomes of wheat, barley and grapevine, including: association studies for loci underlying combined drought and heat tolerance of wheat, the transgenerational epigenetic regulation of the genome in response to abiotic stress, post-transcriptional regulation of barley gene expression by microRNAs, the incorporation of wild relatives chromosomes' into durum wheat and high-throughput generation and characterisation of functional mutants. I completed a PhD in Plant Biology at the University of Southampton (U.K.), investigating leaf development and water relations under elevated CO2 and graduating in December 2004. I followed with a short post-doc in collaboration with Rothamsted Research using forward genetics for breeding research for biomass energy trees. I then moved to the University of Reading and, in collaboration with IBERS Aberystwyth, worked with Mike Wilkinson and Paul Hadley on the epigenetics of cocoa and Arabidopsis in response to changing environmental conditions. At the end of 2011, I moved to the University of Adelaide and, subsequently, the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. I am a Research Fellow in the Genetics and Genomics Group using both forward and reverse genetic approaches to improve the tolerance of wheat, barley and grapevine to abiotic stresses including drought and heat. I have particular responsibility for durum wheat research and lead a collaboration with the Crop Development Centre of the University of Saskatchewan and the Dept. of Agriculture of the University of Tuscia. I continue to research the role of the epigenome in plant biology, including evolutionary and population genetics and, functionally, its role in priming for stress tolerance.

Research Interest

Medicine,Medical Education,Research,etc