Academic Staff

The goals of our laboratory are to understand unique functions of plants at the compound level, accumulating academic information for utilizing the functions, and communicating the information to society. Concretely, we set the following objectives.

1) Functional studies on drought/cold stress-related proteins in plants.
We are elucidating the functions of dehydrins which are special protein to enhance tolerance for the severe environmental conditions. In addition, we also study to establish a new molecular category of plant His-type metal binding peptides. The outcomes will help produce plants which can survive under the multiplex environmental pollutions, such as drought, cold, heavy metals which will be more serious.
2) Studies on growth and secondary metabolism of cruciferous plants.
Cruciferous crops support our lives as vegetables, condiments, and oil. We are studying on radish and wasabi (Japanese horseradish) which is familiar to Japanese. Elucidating biomass increase mechanism of radish and finding a new function of wasabi’s pungent compounds for plants are our targets.