Welcome to Ruochen - new PhD student!
On 15 April 2024, Ruochen Li started as PhD student at DynaMo Center as part of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Distinguished Investigator grant on Plant Microbe Interactions headed by Professor Barbara Ann Halkier.
The focus of Ruochen Li's project is to reveal the mechanism of microbial plant-growth-promoting (PGP) effects, as well as isolate and identify plant-beneficial microbes from natural soils.
Ruochen will clarify the molecular mechanism of PGP effects based on Arabidopsis transplantation experiments and explore the roles of different fractions of plant-associated microbes. She will also isolate and identify PGP strains from natural soils and try to construct consortiums that can promote plant growth or rescue plant nutrients deficiency.
Ruochen is trained in microbial ecology and did her MSc in 2023 at the College of Life Sciences at Northwest A & F University, China. Her MSc project focused on the influence of legacy effects of agricultural management history on soybean rhizosphere microbiome.
Ruochen will be supervised by DynaMo Partners Barbara Ann Halkier and Deyang Xu.