How rapidly can local Chenopodium album become a viable crop?
Current work: diversity collection, selection, nutritional profiling, genomics and transformation.
RESEARCH
From wild plant diversity
to biological function.
Our research starts with the remarkable biology of wild plants and moves across field, lab and data science to understand what makes useful traits possible.
Why wild plants?
Crop diversity is narrow, but plant diversity is not. Local wild species already carry strategies for surviving variable environments, producing distinctive chemistry and thriving with limited intervention. We treat them not only as gene donors, but as potential crops in their own right.
LOCAL DIVERSITYRESILIENT CROPSFUNCTIONAL BIOLOGYFOOD SYSTEMS
One connected workflow
We combine methods across scales, because no single dataset can explain how a plant works.
01
Explore
Collect diversity and measure traits in real environments.
02
Connect
Integrate genomes, transcripts, metabolites and phenotypes.
03
Test
Validate mechanisms through transformation and bioengineering.
04
Translate
Use knowledge to guide domestication and crop design.
CURRENT AND RECENT WORK
How do saponin pathways evolve and shape food quality?
Current work: pathway discovery, biochemical validation and plant bioengineering.
Can multi-omics and machine learning guide early selection?
Current work: multi-omics integration, trait prediction and AI-guided selection.