People

Laurent Deluc (Principal Investigator): I did my Ph.D in France at the University of Bordeaux (2000-2004) studying the function of two regulatory proteins involved in the regulation of phenylpropanoids (secondary metabolites) in grape berry. In 2005, I joined Dr. John Cushman's laboratory at the University of Reno, studying the grape berry transcriptome of two major cultivars (Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay) in water deficit conditions. In 2007, I joined Dr. Grant Cramer's lab working on proteomic and metabolomic of grapevine buds under short and long day conditions. In 2009, I accepted an Assistant Professor position at Oregon State University. Since then, I developed a research program mostly focused on the characterization of gene-to-trait relationships in grapevine and Brachypodium distachyon (stiff brome).

Current Members of the Lab

Satyanarayana Gouthu (Research Associate): Satyanarayana worked for several years in Japan at the Riken Institute in Japan before joined the lab in 2010. His major research focus during the early years in the lab was on the regulation of grape berry development using Next Generation Sequencing techniques with an emphasis on the role of seed-derived Auxin on the ripening progression of grape berry. He also studied the role of strigolactones on the control of branching in Brachypodium distachyon. Since 2016, he is heavily involved in the use of the "microvine" model for genetic engineering in grapevine with the generation of over expressing and knockout mutants. By 2019, he developed a new project on the delivery of RiboNucleoprotein to intact grapevine cells to generate transgene free gene edited microvine plants. As a prove of concept, he is currently generated MLO-mutants that will be resistant to Grape Powdery Mildew and trasngene-free

Charlott Song (Research Associate): Charlotte is originally from the Washington, D. C. area. She attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County for her bachelor’s degree in Biology. Throughout her undergraduate studies, she also worked at the USDA in Beltsville, MD in the Fruit and Vegetable Laboratories. She then moved to the University of Texas to study plants in the Ph. D. program in the laboratory of Stan Roux. She studied the signal transduction of extracellular ATP in Arabidopsis thaliana. From there, she went back home to work at her first postdoctoral position at the University of Maryland in College Park. She studied MAP kinases in ABA signal transduction in Arabidopsis. Next, she went to industry and worked at DuPont in Wilmington, DE. She worked in Research and Development with Milo Aukerman of the punk rock band, the Descendents. She then got a faculty position at Charleston Southern University where she was an associate professor. She was there for 9 years until her husband got a job in Oregon, so the family moved. She is now in the laboratory of Laurent Deluc as a research associate at the Oregon State University studying grapevine and applying CRISPR technology for gene editing. She is developing a CRISPR vector with a virus replicon with host-specificity.

Christian Mandelli (Ph.D. student): Christian is from Milan (Italy). He holds a master in Viticulture and he joined the team in September 2020 to develop a new technology of biopesticides to combat a major viral grapevine disease caused by the Grapevine Red Blotch Virus. His objectives are to 1) characterize the Transcriptional and Post-transcriptional gene silencing events that take place during the early stages of GRBV in grapevine to identify potential "hotspots" (region of the viral genome that are suppressed by the plant defense machinery (small RNA and DNA methylation), 2) to evaluate the ability of these "hotspots" to serve to mitigate the effects of Red Blotch on infected grapevine and to make grapevine plant immune to Red Blotch Virus, and 3) to assess the use of nanoparticles (carbon nanodots) for potential application of dsRNA biopesticides for grapevine crop protection.

Kenneth Donsky (Ph.D. student): Ken is from Gainesville, Florida. He has a B.S. in Horticulture from the University of Florida where he gained experience in Plant Physiology, Plant Pathology, and Micropropagation. After graduating from UF, Ken gained experience working in Dr. Michael Kane’s Micropropagation lab where he studied virus eradication via meristem tip culture and the effects of Photoperiod and ABA on tuber formation in Caladiums. Then, he worked in Dr. Fredy Altpeter’s Plant Molecular Physiology lab at the University of Florida where he researched callus induction, transformation via biolistics and regeneration of Sugarcane and other biofuel crops. Prior to joining the Deluc lab, he worked as a Transformation and Tissue Culture Research Associate at Living Carbon working on biolistic and agrobacterium mediated transformation of Hybrid Poplar and Loblolly Pine. Ken joined the lab in July to help improve the generation of mutant collections in grapevine. The first objective of his project is to employ the Plant Gene Switch System induced by Methoxyfenozide [MOF]) to induce the plant morphogenic genes VitvirGRF-GIF4 for plant regeneration. On top of that, he will test the capacity of nanomaterials to facilitate delivery of sgRNA into microvine cells. Finally, as a proof of concept, he will generate a series of homozygous mutants targeting chlorophyll synthesis and trichome formation.

Britt Eubanks (Master's student): Britt is from Idaho. He joined the lab in September 2020 to develop a Spray Induced Gene Silencing methodology against Grape Powdery Mildew combining the use of plant and fungal-related Double-Strand RNA molecules with Layered Double Hydroxide nanoparticles. To do so, he uses as template for the preparation of dsRNA i) a specific multiple gene family (MLO), which knockout or knockdown can confer resistance to GPM and) ii) several genes of the fungus (Erysiphe necator) that are important for the life cycle of the pathogen.

Abram Smith (Master's Student): Abram is a new Master's student of the Department of Horticulture at OSU (option Plant Breeding and Genetic). Abram is from Napa California and holds a BS in Horticulture from OSU. He was invited back to the lab following his selection as the OWRI Undergraduate Scholar in 2022. During his undergrad, Abram studied the expression of a transgene encoding for an ABA overexpression in transgenic lines under a conditional expression system inducible using a chemical, the methoxyfenozide. For his masters, Abram works on a project to identify grapevine host factors to the grapevine Red Blotch viruses using aYeast Two-Hybrid System. Once the strong interactors will be validated in vitro, the interactions of the strongest candidates will be tested using a Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation assay in grapevine protoplasts. Beyond his project, precise editing on the host factors, via CRISPR/Cas9, that will prevent the interaction with the GRBV proteins without affecting the functionality of the host factors may be envisioned to render grapevine immune to the Red Blotch.

Rushil Patel (Undergraduate Student): Rushil is a junior undergraduate student of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Rushil works on two projects. In the first project, he is testing a Cell-Free Expression System on a major gene candidate in the lab that is teh Auxin Response Factor 4, VitviARF4. The overall idea is to identify the "targetome" of VitviARF4 by conducting DAP-sequencing analyses. In the second project, he collaborates with Abram and Zach to build several genetic binary vectors containing synthetic promoters to conditionally and constitutively express "morphogenic" and CRISPR-CAs9 genes, respectively.

Zoe Grace Bishop: Zoe is a senior environmental sciences student with an environmental water resource option. She is from Atlanta, Georgia and she is on the Women’s Rowing team. She joined the lab in June and she is now in charge of the microvines' maintenance. She is to do her part to take care of the microvines so everyone in the lab can conduct their research!

Former members of the Lab

Cora Gunari (Undergraduate Student and Research Assistant): Cora started as a senior undergraduate student of the Department of Food Sciences at OSU. She is from Sacramento. Cora worked on two major transgenic microvine lines (DR5-V2 and R2D2) that express auxin-responsive reporters genes involved in the auxin signaling and inputs in plants. She evaluated the responsiveness of the DR5-transgenic lines to auxin treatment at different concentration by monitoring gene expression of two reporters genes (GFP and tdTomato) under the control of DR5 and DR5V2 regulatory promoter elements. She then extend her stay in our lab after graduation by integrating a new project on the use of a specific class of Carbon Nano Dots to deliver single stranded RNA.

Fabian Bustos (Internship - [ENSAT - France] 2022 -2023): Fabian is from Paris. After two years of prep school in Biology, he joined the ENSAT in Toulouse to specialized in plant genetic and agronomy. He joined the lab as part of 2nd year internship to improved his lab skills in genetics and molecular biology. He works with Satyanarayanana. His main tasks are 1) to evaluate the resistance of several MLO knockouts ( single, double, triple, and quadruple) conducting pathogenecity assays, and 2) to test the efficiency of Cell-Penetrating Peptides to deliver Cas9 RNP into intact embryogenic microvine cells.

Lannelle Connolly (Senior Faculty Research Assistant, 2022): Lanelle worked for 15 years in Dr. Michael Freitag's lab before going our lab in early 2022 to work with Satyanarayana.While she was here, she was involved in the production of several hybrid Cas9 proteins to test their delivery to intact cells using Cell-Penetrating Peptide.

Mesut Diker (Ph.D candidate, 2018-2022): Mahmut Mesut Diker was a Ph.D student in plant breeding and genetics program at OSU. He was from Bursa locating in the northwest part of Turkey. He has completed a Bachelor and a Master's degree in horticulture. Mesut was involved in the generation of transgenic microvine expressing auxin-responsive reporter genes associated with auxin signaling and inputs.

Landry Rossdeutsch (Postdoctoral scholar, 2016-2020): Landry came to OSU from the French Research Institute of Sciences in Wine and Vine in Bordeaux. During his stay (2016-2020), Landry contributed to the development of a new research area at OWRI focused on understanding the physiology of rootstock-scion interactions of grapevines. This project was a collaborative work between three researchers at OWRI (Drs. Schreiner, Skinkis, and Deluc). Landry received a B.S. degree in Earth and Life Sciences from the University of New Caledonia, France in 2010. In 2012, he received a M.S. degree in Plant Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Bordeaux, France. Three years later he earned a Ph.D. at the same university, where he focused on physical and chemical mechanisms in grapevine responsible for the regulation of stomatal closure under water deficit conditions. He mainly explored long-distance signaling mediated by roots by studying plant hormone and hydraulic signals on grapevines with different rootstock-scion combinations. At OSU, Landry will develop a multifaceted research project with short and long-term objectives. The short-term objectives will provide vine physiology and applied viticulture researchers with a better understanding of how vine vigor and nitrogen affects root/shoot coordinated growth that may be integrated into more applied studies in the future. The long-term goal is to define which physiological and molecular mechanisms result in different growth patterns with different rootstock/scion combinations. The outcomes of this research will provide the basis for selecting new or alternative rootstock-scion materials for improving vigor management of Oregon Pinot noir.

Joseph Schmidt (Master's student, 2015 - 2017): Joseph was a Master's student of the Horticulture program at OSU. He joined the laboratory in 2015 to develop a research project on plant hormones and grape berry development. His research master's thesis was to generate an overview of plant hormones profiles using Mass Tandem Spectrometry under Selective Reaction Monitoring.

Amanda Vondras (Ph.D student, 2012 - 2017): Amanda was from New York state. She graduated from Cornell University before joining the lab as Ph.D student in the interdisciplinary Molecular and Cellular Biology graduate program at OSU. She joined our laboratory in 2012 to develop a research program on the effects of Grape LeafRoll Virus on the small RNA landscape in grape berry.