plant science

Plant probes make sense for sustainable farming

1 min read · Sun, Jun 20 2021

plant science Biosensors agriculture electrical engineering

Ultrathin needles for probing plants could help keep crop health in check.

Ikram Blilou

Professor, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

Prof. Ikram Blilou is Professor of Plant Science at KAUST. Her research focuses on studying mechanisms regulating stem cell specification and maintenance in model plant species like Arabidopsis and tomato. She also studies strategies of adaptation of desert plants (date palm, mangroves and Sodom apple) within their native harsh environment, through analyzing their root system architecture. Some of her research questions aim to unravel how cell-cell communication though hormones signalling and protein movement regulate stem cells in the context of growth and defense against pathogens. Her team uses multidisciplinary approaches to understand these processes including fluorescence lifetime imaging, tissue culture and plant transformation, transcriptional assays, high resolution microscopy, non-invasive imaging technologies. The team implements deep learning and computer vision to analyze and quantify dynamic processes in vivo ranging from protein associations to pathogen invasion and disease detection and growth quantification.