Cytology, genetics, genomics and gene editing under one roof at IBERS Gogerddan.
I am a group leader and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at Aberystwyth University. I'm interested in meiosis, polyploidy, gene editing and DNA repair: all things that generate new DNA sequences or sequence combinations, providing the raw material for natural and artificial selection.
Before moving to the UK, I studied and worked in Australia, France and the US.
Candida is our resident lab wizard and cytology guru, with a wealth of experience in plant meiosis and molecular and cell biology. Her interests also include moss, CT scanning and crop domestication. She is investigating meiosis in our favourite allopolyploid, Arabidopsis suecica, to understand how plants with doubled genomes manage accurate chromosome segregation.
Aled has a background in mathematics and is our resident bioinformatician. He's mad enough to do things like assemble and annotate polyploid genomes, and he provides the lab's genomics support.
Will is interested in trait introgression from crop wild relatives. As part of his FoodBioSystems PhD he is partnering with breeding company Germinal to investigate the genetic basis of rhizome formation in clover.
Fred's PhD investigates how heat stress affects plant reproduction. He is working to identify the genes that help plants stay fertile at high temperatures, building on the lab's work on temperature, meiosis and seed yield.
Julia's PhD is developing transgene-free gene-editing approaches using nanoparticles, working with colleagues at Queen's University Belfast who bring expertise in nanoparticle synthesis for drug delivery.
Missy first joined the lab as a Year in Industry student working on meiosis in polyploid Arabidopsis, and has returned for her Masters.
Chris is working on how plant reproduction evolves to cope with the challenges of genome doubling.
George is optimising prime editing in Arabidopsis for efficient precision genome engineering.
