Research Director

Yasunori Ichihashi

BioResource Research Center, RIKEN
Team Leader

Outline

Since most agricultural crops grow in soil, which is one of the richest microbial ecosystems on Earth, a plant and its microbiota are strongly associated with each other and should behave as a single superorganism. This research project utilizes multiple omics technologies such as phenome, transcriptome and microbiome analyses to reveal biological networks of plant-microbiota superorganisms. Based on the resultant network modules, synthetic bacterial communities will be tested for the ability to modulate plant growth and development, with the aim of establishing a new transformation-free system to design crop traits.