Conrath Lab

 

We want to understand how plants fend off disease. Our focus is on the elucidation of defense priming. The term describes the enhanced defensive capacity of immunized plants. They activate defense earlier, faster and often more strongly than unprimed plants. In addition to basic research, we also have projects in plant biotechnology and bioeconomy to transfer the findings of our basic research to applications. Our goal is to make crop protection more effective and contribute to environmentally friendly plant production.

Projects in defense priming

• Functional analysis of identified MAP kinase substrates in Arabidopsis thaliana
• Phosphoproteins in the primed plant immune response

Projects in plant biotechnology

• Soybean plants with reduced disease susceptibility
• Bifunctional peptides for plant protection

Projects in epigenetics

• The epigenome of systemic defense priming
• Transcriptional regulation of systemic defense priming

Projects in bioeconomy

• Priming-active compounds for plant protection
• The biology of the soybean rust fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi