The Brauer lab works to understand how plants respond to their environment and pathogen attack with the ultimate goal of improving cereal crops. The lab is currently focused on barley and wheat as well as the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. While discoveries in model plants has formed the basis for our understanding how plant perceive and adapt to their surroundings, translation of this knowledge into solutions for the agricultural sector remains ongoing. Improved genetic, genomic and phenomic tools enables the next generation of plant biologists to begin to tackle the salient problems affecting crop production. Our goal is to bridge the gap between understanding key genes and processes regulating physiological responses and application of this knowledge to agricultural problems affecting Canadian farmers. |