Vanessa Melino

Biography

Dr Melino is passionate about improving plant nutrition. She is interested in understanding how plant roots take up nitrogen and recycle internal sources of nitrogen. Dr Melino is looking for high performing wheat cultivars that acquire soil nitrogen fertiliser in early stages of growth. This includes looking closely at how root architecture and nitrate transport changes with nitrogen supply. She is also identifying whether high performing wheat cultivars use an internal source of nitrogen-rich metabolites to support growth under stress conditions. Her previous research at Murdoch University was on the symbiotic interaction between clover host and soil bacteria called rhizobia. This symbiosis enables a plant to grow without supplying nitrogen fertiliser. She characterised the strain-host incompatibility phenotypes and predicted the genetic cause of these. Dr Melino is striving to unlock the unknowns of plant nitrogen uptake and recycling in order to improve crop yields without increasing nitrogen fertiliser use.

Research Interest

Medicine,Medical Education,Research,etc