Research Interests

Plant Responses to the Environment

Dr. Luthe’s long-term research interest is to learn how plants respond to environmental stresses at the physiological, biochemical and molecular levels. Because plants are fixed in their environment, they cannot move to avoid biotic assaults from insect herbivores and plant pathogens or unfavorable abiotic conditions such as extreme temperature fluctuations. The two major areas of research in my laboratory are focused on understanding how corn defends itself against herbivory by caterpillars and the aflatoxin-producing fungus, Aspergillus flavus. Another research area is aimed at understanding the role of the small, chloroplast-localized heat shock proteins in thermotolerance in plants. We use a wide range of techniques, including functional genomics and proteomics, to address these important questions in plant stress biology.