Question: You wish to reduce disease in plants, but how using you data would you be able to do this, sorry if its a stupid question!

Steven Kiddle answered on 22 Jun 2010:

Its not a stupid question, its the question my phd is made to answer!

Life consists of billions of chemical reactions and the exquisite control of these. So by measuring concentrations of certain chemicals you can understand how they are being used in defence against disease, if a chemical is only produced in response to the disease then its worth doing more research on. But the problem is we measure the concentration of so many chemicals that without using computers we can never see enough of the data at once to draw these conclusions.

I focus on gene regulation, where the protein coded for by a gene switches other genes on, like a light switch turning lights on. I use the computer to find which genes are being switched on directly after another is, like lights coming on after the switch is flicked, and if it turns out to be correct in the lab then by controlling the switch we can change how successfully the plant survives disease.

Sorry for the long answer, its a complex question.