Seed and Starch Biology Lab:

Legumes and millets are vital for sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, and nutritional security making them ideal for cultivation in regions vulnerable to climate change. Legumes enhance soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, while millets are known for their resilience, short growing cycles, and resistance to drought and pests. Nutritionally, legumes and millets are rich in essential proteins, minerals, fiber, and bioactive compounds, offering sustainable solutions to combat malnutrition. However, despite their many advantages, legumes and millets have historically been underrepresented in genomic and molecular research compared to major cereals. Research focused on legumes and millets is now crucial to unlock their genetic potential and improve traits such as yield, stress tolerance, seed quality, and nutritional content ultimately contributing to more resilient food systems.

Major goals of our lab are:

• Starch plays a crucial role in plants as the primary form of carbohydrate storage. In seeds, starch is synthesized within specialized plastids called amyloplasts, forming insoluble, semi-crystalline starch granules. In nature, there is considerable variation in the spatiotemporal patterns of starch granule initiation, as well as in the size, shape, and number of granules within amyloplasts across different species. However, many questions about starch granule initiation, assembly and morphogenesis remain unanswered. For example: how do starch polymers (amylose and amylopectin) assemble to form the semi-crystalline granule? What are the key molecular players involved in determining the size and shape of starch granules? Therefore, we aim to identify and characterize the genes and proteins involved in starch granule formation, and to assess their effects on granule size, shape, and number by leveraging the natural variation available in legumes and millets.

• Beyond their crucial role in agriculture and human nutrition, seeds possess some unique biological capabilities, including the remarkable ability to survive in a desiccated (dry) state for prolonged periods. Therefore, we aim to investigate the molecular mechanisms regulating seed survivability and germinability in the desiccated state for these important crops.

To address these research questions, we employ cutting-edge tools and techniques spanning plant molecular biology, biochemistry, functional genomics, and bioinformatics.

We welcome interdisciplinary collaborations and invite researchers who share our vision of improving crops to meet future challenges. If you're interested in working together, please drop me an email with your CV. Students with experience in plant molecular Biology or biochemistry are preferred.