Itay Gonda Lab
Genetics and genomics of aromatic and medicinal plants
Agricultural
Research
Organization
Volcani center
Itay Gonda, Ph.D.
Group leader
Itay Gonda, Ph.D.
Group leader
Exiting NEWS!
BARD, the US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund, will fund us a 3-year project on "Uncoupling postharvest browning and aroma chemotype in sweet basil using gene editing" in collaboration with Di Rong, Jim Simon and Michael Lawton from Rutgers University.
BARD will also fund us a 3-year project on Tomato flavor led by Itay Maoz of Volcani in collaboration with Jim Giovannoni from BTI.
People have been used plants for medicine, perfumes and as aromatic herbs for thousands of years. The biological activity attributed to these plants is a result of various chemical compounds known as specialized metabolites. Aromatic and medicinal plants are valued for their ability to accumulate such compounds which are beneficial for humans. They possess a huge chemical diversity that contributes to our kitchen, medicine cabinet and perfume bouquet. This diversity presents both between species and within a species. The genetic mechanisms that drive this chemical diversity are largely unknown. Also, the active compounds in some of the important plants are unknown or their biosynthetic pathway is still a riddle.
Our goal is to bring state-of-the-art methods to the field of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants to promote both science and breeding. That includes (but not limited to) sequencing-based genotyping and QTL mapping, transcriptomic analyses, metabolomics and genome editing.
We have a new paper published in Physiologia Plantarum on
the genetics behind the inflorescence color of sweet basil!
People have been used plants for medicine, perfumes and as aromatic herbs for thousands of years. The biological activity attributed to these plants is a result of various chemical compounds known as specialized metabolites. Aromatic and medicinal plants are valued for their ability to accumulate such compounds which are beneficial for humans. They possess a huge chemical diversity that contributes to our kitchen, medicine cabinet and perfume bouquet. This diversity presents both between species and within a species. The genetic mechanisms that drive this chemical diversity are largely unknown. Also, the active compounds in some of the important plants are unknown or their biosynthetic pathway is still a riddle.
Our goal is to bring state-of-the-art methods to the field of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants to promote both science and breeding. That includes (but not limited to) sequencing-based genotyping and QTL mapping, transcriptomic analyses, metabolomics and genome editing.
