Hua Lu

Plants are constantly challenged by pathogens and pests. Billions of dollars are lost each year worldwide due to plant diseases. Understanding how plants defend themselves against invaders will not only advance our knowledge of plant innate immunity, but more importantly, will also help us to develop effective strategies to improve disease-resistance traits in economically important crop plants. We aim to better understand the mechanism of plant disease resistance, using the model plant Arabidopsis and ultimately apply the defense knowledge obtained from Arabidopsis to improve disease resistant traits in crop plants.