Elucidating conserved gene regulatory networks underlying plant immunity

Crucially this project will determine to what extent our immunity gene network is conserved in other crops (testing celery and cucurbits). Conservation of the network would be a significant discovery as it would open-up opportunities for exploiting our network findings in these crops without having to repeat the large-scale data generation that underlies it. The student will use existing lettuce gene editing protocols in our lab and new gene editing protocols for other crops developed in a collaborative KTP with Tozer Seeds. The work would have major academic impact in terms of future research approaches and our ability to manipulate defence gene networks.