- Department
- Email Address
- [email protected]
- Research Areas
- Research Keywords
- Research Description
My lab works on understanding the regulation of carbon metabolism in plants. Addressing this topic can potentially enable us to make more rational attempts at yield improvement in crops and design starch structures which are suited to particular end-users.
- Research Summary
My lab examines the control mechanisms underpinning starch biosynthesis in leaf chloroplasts (which make starch during the daytime, and degrade it at night) of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and non-photosynthetic amyloplasts of cereal endosperms such as maize, wheat, barley and rice which make storage starches. More specifically, we are interested in the biochemical control mechanisms governing the many enzymes and enzyme classes which make up the core pathway of starch biosynthesis. This involves investigating the role of protein-protein interactions and protein phosphorylation in coordinating the proteins involved in starch synthesis and degradation within the plastid to produce the highly ordered and complex structure of the starch granule.
- Techniques Used
Molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, protein chemistry.
- Lab Equipment
Centrifuges, HPLC, FPLC, PCR, gel electrophoresis, protein purification chromatography, 2D electrophoresis.