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Crops suffer devastating damage due to plant diseases. Therefore, breeding disease-resistant crops is critical for global food production. In the field of plant pathology, I am particularly interested in plant immunity research. While severe plant diseases are reported in agricultural fields, plants often grow healthily in natural environments. This suggests that plants possess effective immune systems against pathogenic microorganisms, allowing them to protect themselves from diseases. From the perspective of “coevolution in plant-microbe interactions,” I aim to gain a fundamental understanding of the plant immune system.

In the Hakubi project, I focus on plant NLR (nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat) immune receptors to understand the basic mechanisms underlying the diversity of pathogen recognition and the commonalities of immune induction. Specifically, by integrating genome analysis, AI and protein structure analysis, I will predict the molecular functions of plant NLRs from genome sequence information and assess their molecular functions to comprehensively elucidate the plant NLR immune system.