Dr. Deborah Samac

These researchers are using MSI resources for several research projects:

• Generating and analyzing Illumina MySeq data from sequencing amplicons from bacterial, fungal, and oomycete DNA isolated from rhizosphere soil and alfalfa roots from locations where alfalfa stand establishment has been poor. The goal is to analyze the communities from these locations to better identify pathogens and deploy resistant cultivars.
• Investigating genes expressed in host plants infected with pathogens, and the genes expressed in pathogens during infection. This work uses cultivated wild rice, alfalfa, and Medicago truncatula as the host plants and a range of bacterial, fungal and oomycete pathogens.
• Assembling a reference genome sequence for alfalfa. Additionally, several additional genomes are being assembled, and RNA sequencing will be done to assist in annotation of the genomes.