Meet The Hydrosensing Team
Dr. Malcolm J. Bennett is deeply interested in how plant roots sense environmental signals, which has led to key discoveries, including a recent finding on how roots detect soil hardness through a gas-based mechanism. Recently, Dr. Malcolm J. Bennett and collaborators from Tel Aviv, Regensburg, and Trondheim identified the mechanisms behind plant water sensing, a breakthrough that could inform efforts to enhance crop resilience to climate change.
With over 20 years of experience in interdisciplinary research, Dr. Malcolm J. Bennett co-founded the Systems Biology Centre for Plant Integrative Biology, uniting biosciences, computer science, and engineering. Dr. Bennett's leadership in projects like the X-ray CT root imaging facility underscores a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches, positioning Dr. Malcolm J. Bennett to co-lead the HYDROSENSING project with Shani, Ziegler, and Hamann.
How plants sense and adapt to water stress remains a fundamental, unresolved question in plant-environment interactions—one that is especially critical as climate change intensifies. Dr. Thorsten Hamann is excited to join this team in exploring this question. Fascinated by the dynamic nature of plant cell walls, Dr. Thorsten Hamann’s research focuses on how these structures adapt in composition and stiffness to meet the plant’s needs during growth, development, and environmental interaction.
Dr. Thorsten Hamann’s group studies cell wall integrity maintenance as a model for understanding how plants perceive mechanical stimuli and translate them into chemical signals. Notably, the team has shown that a receptor kinase involved in this process regulates both cell wall stiffness and ABA production. This work has been advanced through the use of Brillouin microscopy, which enables live, label-free analysis of cell wall stiffness in sub-epidermal tissues. With expertise in cell wall signaling and ABA induction, Dr. Thorsten Hamann’s group will bring valuable insights and technical resources to the HYDROSENSING project.
Dr. Christine Ziegler is excited to join this interdisciplinary team to tackle the fundamental question of how plants sense water. Since 2006, Dr. Ziegler 's research has focused on membrane transport, particularly on the osmolyte transporter BetP involved in osmotic stress regulation. Her lab was the first to capture BetP’s full molecular cycle and recently uncovered how lipid-protein interactions play a role in stress sensing.
At Regensburg University since 2012, Dr. Christine Ziegler has built a structural biology toolbox, including CryoEM, and collaborates with the Ultrafast Nanoscopy Center. With expertise in membrane transport biochemistry, Dr. Ziegler looks forward to using innovative tools like Raman imaging and advanced genetic techniques to explore plant transporters, aiming to provide insights that could help address climate change challenges.
Since 2014, Dr. Eilon Shani’s lab at Tel Aviv University has become a leader in plant hormone transport research, identifying one of the first gibberellin transporters and uncovering novel transport mechanisms for IAA and ABA. The lab has also developed advanced genomic platforms to address functional redundancy.
Dr. Eilon Shani has secured numerous prestigious grants, including an ERC grant (2017) and HFSP grants (2015, 2019). His group develops genome-scale, multi-targeted, CRISPR- and amiRNA based, forward-genetics tools to uncover inaccessible genetic variation in plants. This expertise in plant genomics and hormone transport will complement the strengths of the Hamann, Bennett, and Ziegler labs, aiming to answer the key question of how plants sense water stress.
