Research Focus

Crop productivity and quality are continuously threatened by a wide range of plant pathogens, creating major challenges for sustainable agriculture. Developing environmentally friendly and effective strategies to improve plant health and disease resistance is therefore an important goal in modern crop protection.

Plants have evolved sophisticated immune systems to defend against pathogen invasion. Our research is particularly interested in (Systemic Acquired Resistance, SAR), an inducible systemic immune response activated following local infection. Although SAR depends on long-distance signaling to establish resistance in distal tissues, the identity of these mobile signals and the mechanisms underlying their perception, transmission, and regulation remain incompletely understood.

In parallel, increasing evidence suggests that leaf-associated microbial communities play important roles in plant growth, health, and disease resistance. Plants can also shape microbial community composition through immune and metabolic processes. However, how plant immune signaling interacts with leaf-associated microbes, and how these interactions contribute to plant health and disease resistance, remains largely unresolved.

Our research focuses on:

1. Understanding how plant-derived small molecules regulate the activation of SAR and identifying key signaling components involved in this immune pathway.

2. Investigating the roles of leaf-associated microbial communities in inducible disease resistance and plant growth, and elucidating the mechanisms underlying plant-microbe interactions.

Through these efforts, we aim to advance the fundamental understanding of plant immunity and plant-microbe interactions, while contributing to the development of safe and sustainable strategies for improving crop disease resistance.