Our Researcher

Dr. Martin graduated from the University of Calicut, Kerala, India in 2001. He is a recipient of the prestigious UKEIRI-India research fellowship, and he performed his research to enhance the production of pharmaceutical compounds in medicinal plants using molecular techniques at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Martin continued his research at Blumwald Laboratory, University of California, Davis (2009-2014) and focused on developing abiotic stress-tolerant plants through genetic transformation. He started his research at KCGEB in 2014.

Research Summary:

Crop growth is severely affected by abiotic stresses such as drought, temperature, and salinity. The development of crops adaptable to stress conditions addresses agricultural productivity. Plants surviving the extreme adverse conditions of UAE are the potential sources of unique genetic determinants conferring tolerance to various abiotic stresses. Many genes enabling the plants to adapt to the stress conditions have been identified and cloned from the plants growing well in the UAE. The research focuses on the functional characterization of these genes as to the stress conditions and to be stacked to compete high to the stresses. Besides, promoters inducing the expression of the key genes conferring tolerance to different stresses have also been identified and cloned. The genes conferring tolerance to varying stresses under the control of these inducible promoters are used to develop genetically modified crops adaptable to different stresses. The strategies include genomics, proteomics, molecular biology, plant transformation, and metabolomics approaches to characterize the genes. The target crops are tomato, eggplant, peanut, quinoa, pearl millet, maize, black pepper, and date palm. In addition, the research on fruit crops focuses on flowering time, ripening, and other novel fruit traits.

CRISPR/Cas9, the designer nuclease, enables the switch-off of genes by knocking out or inserting new sequences with surgical precision at a specific site in the genome. This state-of-the-art Genome Editing technology has extensive practical applications in agriculture, such as developing new crop varieties, high-yielding crops tolerant to abiotic and biotic stresses, and fruits/vegetables/grains of high nutritional value. The research focuses on developing crops with high tolerance to abiotic stresses and fruits with improved quality using CRISPR/Cas and developed a high-yielding variety of eggplant through genome editing.

Salima Al Senaani Laboratory Specialist , Salima Al Senaani is a lab specialist at the Khalifa Center for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from UAE University in 2010. She joined the Khalifa Center for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in 2013 and, in the same year, enrolled in a specialized training program in plant biotechnology at the University of California, Davis, which greatly enhanced her knowledge of advanced biotechnology methods that she later integrated into her professional work. In 2018, she obtained a Master’s degree in Biotechnology. Salima works at the Khalifa Center on developing crops that are resistant to abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity, as well as improving the quality traits of fruits. She has also contributed to several research papers published in the fields of microbiome and field trials for bentgrass.

Shina Sasi, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Shina graduated in Applied Botany from Mangalore University, India, in 2018, and her doctoral research focused on accomplishing piper yellow mottle virus-free plants of black pepper. She served as a senior researcher at ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research. She worked on a Department of Biotechnology project funded by the Government of India that aimed to assess the virus resistance in transgenic black pepper. As a postdoctoral fellow at KCGEB, Dr. Shina focuses on developing abiotic and biotic-tolerant crops through transgenesis and genome editing, as well as functional studies using model plants.

Saranya Krishnan SR, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Fellow , Dr. Saranya Krishnan earned her Ph. D. in Botany from the University of Kerala, India, in 2017, focusing on scale-up production of pharmaceutical leads from medicinal plants through genetic modification. Following her graduate studies, she joined as an Assistant Professor at Mahatma Gandhi College, Kerala, India, where she taught and mentored bachelor and master students in plant science courses. Her present research as a postdoctoral fellow at KCGEB covers improving various crops through plant genetic transformation and genome editing. She focuses on functional studies of genes-of-interest in model systems, developing crops tolerant to abiotic stresses, and improving fruit quality traits.

Dr. Ling joined the Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology as a Senior Research Associate in 2014. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the Ohio State University (Ohio, USA). She completed her doctoral degree in Molecular Genetics under the supervision of Professor Harald Vaessin at the Ohio State University in 2000. Her doctoral research focused on cell cycle regulation of the neuronal stem cells. In 2001, she joined the Bruce Edgar laboratory at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center FHCRC (Seattle, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow to work on cell cycle and cell growth regulations. In 2008, she continued her research in the Eisenman laboratory at the FHCRC, focusing on post-translational regulations of the Myc oncogene.

Research Summary: Learning from halophytes for crop improvement

Increased salinity is a major abiotic stress resulting in both osmotic and ionic stresses presenting a great challenge for plant growth and crop productivity. Through various changes in genetic, metabolic and physiological traits, local plants growing in the UAE are well adapted to different abiotic stresses in the arid or semi-arid environment. These plants could potentially provide important genetic resources for crop improvement to enhance abiotic stress tolerance. As majority of crops are glycophytes, i.e. sensitive to saline environment, an enhancement in their salt tolerance could contribute to overall increase in crop production.

The research interests of my group are to investigate and utilize the natural genetic potential of abiotic stress tolerant halophyte for crop improvement. We are keen to understand how these halophytes survive in the saline environment through their physiological, biochemical and anatomical adaptations. Comparative genomic and transcriptomic studies on related halophytes and glycophytes could provide some vital insights into the ionic, molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in salt tolerance. By incorporating comparative genomics, bioinformatics and bio-engineering, my group aims to identify and analyze novel salt-responsive genes and regulatory elements that contribute to overall salt tolerance in local halophyte. The identified genes and regulatory elements will be utilized to improve salt tolerance in the crops using genetic engineering approach.

Dr. Suja obtained PhD in Biotechnology from University of Madras in 2008. Her doctoral work involved understanding the molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in the drought tolerant plant Prosopis juliflora. She worked as Senior scientist and later Principal Scientist at M.S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), India until 2019. During this period, she received several awards and research fellowships such as DBT CREST fellowship 2011, Indo-US research fellowship 2012, Indo-U.S. Genome Engineering/Editing Technology Initiative (GETin) Fellowship 2018, SERB Early Career Research Award 2018 etc. As part of the fellowships, she gained postdoctoral experience from research labs in University of Illinois (2011) and University of California, Davis (2012-13, 2018-19). Her research career focuses on understanding plant abiotic stress tolerance and developing crop plants tolerant to drought and salinity. She joined KCGEB in 2019.

Dr. Manish Roorkiwal joined the Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (KCGEB) as a Research A. Professor - Genomics Breeding. Dr Roorkiwal is also associated with the Institute of Agriculture, the University of Western Australia as an Adjunct Associate Professor. Before joining KCGEB, Dr Roorkiwal worked at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Hyderabad, India, on Genomics, Pre-Breeding and Bioinformatics. Dr Roorkiwal earned his PhD in Biotechnology with a specialization in Applied Genomics from the GGSIP University of India in 2013. During his PhD, he mainly focused on identifying drought-responsive candidate genes and candidate gene-based association mapping in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). With a basic background in molecular genetics and applied genomics, Dr Roorkiwal has extensive research experience in improving the crop productivity of legumes in marginal environments using modern genetics and breeding approaches, including identifying candidate genes and their functional validation genomics-assisted breeding. With a strong interest in modern breeding approaches such as genomic selection, next-generation sequencing-based re-sequencing, and low-cost genotyping to enhance the use of markers in routine breeding. He is also known for leading the efforts in developing cost-effective (low-, mid- and high-density) genotyping platforms enabling the use of markers in routine breeding programs. With a vast experience in international agriculture, he has published >50 research in high impact journals, including Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Genetics, Trend in Plant Science, Trends in Genetics, Plant Biotechnology Journal, etc. In addition, to his credits, he has also contributed to the development and release of several molecular breeding products for drought tolerance and disease resistance for commercial cultivation in India and Ethiopia. Dr Roorkiwal is a dedicated Agriculture Scientist with expertise in Genomic Breeding, Plant Biotechnology, Genomics, and Next-generation sequencing.

Genomic breeding platform to develop improved climate-resilient varieties

Improved crop cultivars are a key component of agri-food systems, and business-as-usual breeding scenarios do not suffice to meet future agri-food system demands. Technology advancement provides unique opportunities to identify and deploy superior allele(s)/gene(s) for climate-smart traits, innovations and enabling technologies for improving crop genetics to address the future climate change related challenges for desert agriculture. We focus on establishing efficient crop breeding through collaborative development of timely interventions and technologies to develop and deliver improved varieties well adapted to existing and evolving climate conditions. We envisage the integration of breeding technologies innovations, precision phenotyping platforms, and big data management to bridge knowledge gaps for implementing genomics breeding to deliver climate-resilient improved crop varieties. The group is focusing on :

Establishing a genomic breeding platform to achieve self-sufficiency in crop production
Understanding the challenges for agriculture and generating opportunities for desert agriculture to ensure quality and nutritious food in a fast and effective manner
Develop resilient, climate-smart and nutritious improved varieties identifying consumer preferred and demand-driven traits, understand the genetics of new traits, and crop wild relatives
Develop and deploy innovative breeding strategies, tools, and technologies to sustainably enhance the genetic potential for higher crop production
Optimize and deploy novel breeding methods to develop superior varieties; adopt speed breeding technology/rapid generation advancement.
Implement an evolutionary system biology approach for crop improvement by dissecting the genetics of traits related to morphological and physiological variation through integrative approaches and comparative genomics

Dr. Hazzouri earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary genomics from the University of Toronto in 2012. In his doctoral research he worked on mating system evolution in the flowering plants (Capsella and Collinsia) and its genomic consequences. He joined as a senior research scientist at the Purugganan laboratory in the New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), working mainly on the genomic diversity and origin of the perennial Date palm fruit tree as well as mining genetic variants in the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. In 2017, he joined the Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology as a Research Assistant Professor and his research interests mainly focuses on understanding species diversity, including natural variation within species and how species evolve and adapt to various environments. Also, he is interested in natural variations, which can provide important insights into importance functional variation for crop breeding.

Research Summary: Genomics and Bioinformatics

Khaled Hazzouri s bioinformatic group is dedicated to provided extensive state-of-the-art genomics and bioinformatics expertise to other researchers at the KCGEB. His group offers support in the Next-generation sequencing (NGS) experimental design, sample quality-control, sequencing and large data analysis. The group is specialized in the discovery of novel molecular markers from the microorganisms, plants, insects, birds and microbes in the UAE, centering on the use of DNA polymorphisms, differential gene-expression and chromatin modifications that can have a potential application from a translational genomics into a commercial crop such as Tomato, Eggplant and Water Spinach.

Bioinformatics pipelines: Transcriptomics; Computational Genomics; Comparative Genomics; Functional Genomics; Genetic Variation Analysis; Metagenomics; Pathogen bioinformatics; Plant-Pathogen genomics.

The group activities include

Sequencing the whole genome of a Prosopis species and using its RNA-Seq and metabolomic data to understand the salt tolerance mechanism.

Sequencing the whole genome of Water spinach and performing comparative genomic analysis and mapping with another salt-tolerant Ipomea species.

Sequencing the whole genome of a Sesuvium species. and using its comparative transcriptomic RNA-Seq data to map some of the potential markers for translational genomic research.

Performing a Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) in the Date palm to map genes and genomic regions associated with traits of agronomic interest.

Studying the genetic diversity of the Rhynchophorus species across its geographic range distribution in the UAE and to use CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing tool to disrupt functional genes and pathways vital for its survival.

Sequencing the genome of Asian Houbara bustard to improve its genome and to perform genome-wide mapping study and comparative genomic analysis with the Chicken, to identify some of vital trails for enhanced breeding.