
Magdy Alabady
Associate Research Faculty
Plant Biology
Genomics and computational biology of plant – microbiome interactions, RNA post-translation regulatory networks, and genome characterization
Learn more about this group by contacting Dr. Esther van der Knaap (EsthervanderKnaap@uga.edu) or by visiting the UGA Plant Center website.
Basic research in plant sciences helps meet the enormous challenge of securing food and health for a world population that has already reached 7 billions and is likely to grow to 9 billions by 2050. Research covers a wide range of research topics including the perception of light by plants, seed germination and plant development, mecanisms of resistance to diseases, plant-insect or plant-microbe interactions, metabolism of plant cells or epigenetic mechanisms.
Genomics and computational biology of plant – microbiome interactions, RNA post-translation regulatory networks, and genome characterization
Molecular cell biology of the wall, Biofuel and BioEnergy, Golgi as model for System biology, Plant Immunity.
Crop breeding and genetics.
Website coming
Plant genomics and genome evolution, transposable elements,
and regulatory gene evolution.
Plant genome biology with a focus on crops and medicinal plants; Synthetic biology; Evolution of natural product biosynthesis
Structures and functions of the noncellulosic polysaccharides of plant primary cell walls.
Plant centromere and kinetochore structure and function.
Crop genetics, comparative genomics and genome evolution.
Molecular mechanisms of plant immune action and bacterial pathogen virulence in model and crop pathosystems. Tool/technique development for phytopathogenesis systems biology and translational research.
Cell Biology of Cilia; Cilia-related diseases, Intracellular Transport.
Phylogenetics, genetics of diversification including speciation; molecular basis of adaptation;
evolutionary genomics; evolution of plant reproduction; organismal and molecular coevolution.
Fertilization, and early cell-fate decisions in plant embryos.
Biosynthesis and function of the plant cell wall polysaccharide pectin.
Anti-cancer effects of pectin.
Cell differentiation during plant reproduction, genomics and gene regulatory networks, single-cell RNA-sequencing, reprogramming cell fate
My unit’s work addresses dimensions of plant genome biology relevant toward a more bio-based economy, linking increased fundamental knowledge to improved human lives.
Population epigenomics and mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance.
Evolutionary biology and population genetics of natural plant populations, specifically evolutionary
factors that shape patterns of genetic variation and mechanisms for partitioning and maintaining species-wide diversity.
Growth-defense tradeoff, phenylpropanoid metabolism and carbon allocation,
gene family evolution and functional diversification, alternative splicing and gene duplication.
Structure and function of enzymes involved in plant polysaccharide biosynthesis and modification with the long term goal to develop pathway engineering or targeted genomics approaches for enhanced production of bio-materials, -products, and -fuels.
The regulation of fruit shape and size of tomato and other Solanaceous crops
Quantitative genetics, crop genomics, crop-microbiome interactions.
Drug Development, Chemical Biology, Cancer Disease Mechanism, Epigenetics and Genetics, Histone Modifications, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Enzymology, and Biophysics.