Our laboratory is interested in the elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying plant responses to growth and stress hormones, nutrients, environmental stresses, and pathogens. We are actively developing new methodologies and assays to enable research discoveries. The use of a combination of genetic, genomic, proteomic, cellular, and biochemical approaches has facilitated the discovery of regulatory genes that control these central signal transduction pathways from receptors/sensors to transcription factors in plants.

Our recent efforts focus on the plant signal transduction pathways employing hexokinases, receptor kinases, and histidine kinases as primary sensors in sugar, elicitor, auxin, ABA, H2O2, cytokinin, and stress signaling. The roles of downstream signaling components, including specific G proteins, MAPK cascades, CDPKs, phosphatases, and transcription factors in plant signal transduction pathways have been actively explored.