TALIA KARASOV

My research aims to understand the factors--genetic and environmental--that lead to pathogen outbreaks in plant populations. We approach this broad question by combining molecular, computational and field work to elucidate how pathogens evolve to colonize different hosts, and how hosts evolve to resist specific pathogens. Our current work uses functional genomics and statistical genetics of bacterial pathogens to identify genes important for host-specific colonization, and metabolomics to identify small molecules involved in plant-pathogen interactions.