Hettiarachchi GHCM | Research & Reviews

Hettiarachchi GHCM
Hettiarachchi GHCM,Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Biography
Hettiarachchi GHCM is a Senior Lecturer in Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science which is affiliated to University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. And her teaching areas are Molecular Biology, Biochemistry & Microbiology. She is committed to highest standards of excellence and it proves through her authorship of many books.
Research Interest
Applying knowledge gained from studies of Arabidopsis thaliana on the agriculturally important crop rice (Oryza sativa).Light signaling in plants:Light is an important factor for plant growth and development. During my postdoc, I studied a group of Arabidopsis proteins (STO, STH, STH2 & STH3) that were identified through their interactions with two key regulators of light signaling, COP1 and HY5. The productivity of crop plants might be enhanced by over expressing central regulator of light signaling pathways. The main aim of this project is to overexpress the (Salt Tolerance Homolog 2) STH2 gene in rice to improve its quality and productivity. Abiotic stress signaling in plants: The Arabidopsis plants with mutations in the STH2 gene show hypersensitivity to Abscisic acid (ABA), a drought and salt stress regulating hormone, and to NaCl in germination and root growth assay. Furthermore, we have found that the expression of several key regulators of ABA signaling is altered in the sth2 mutant indicating that the STH2 gene plays an important role in response to drought and salinity. The main objective of this project is to apply this knowledge on rice in an effort to obtain drought tolerance Sri Lankan rice varieties.