Dr LOUISE MICHAELSON

BIOGRAPHY

Louise's work is focused on optimising the production of crops for nutrition. The primary objective of her work has been to understand the role and regulation of lipid modification enzymes. Louise's main interest is in plant lipid metabolism, specifically the modification of seed oils. Working in the emerging field of lipidomics, which studies the pathways and networks of cellular lipids in biological systems on a large scale, she investigates the dynamics of cellular lipids and the changes that occur in plants during development or perturbation. She utilises metabolic engineering with a systems-wide approach, integrating data across the transcriptome and the metabolome. Louise has identified key genes involved in the production of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and she continues to work on the production of these in crop species via metabolic engineering.

Louise's work contributes towards achieving global food security. She has a number of projects in this area including research to improve abiotic stress tolerance in plants and maintaining oilseed yield.