DrUmair Ahsan

My research interests span plant molecular biology, plant pathology, genomics and molecular diagnostics, with a broad focus on understanding plant–pathogen interactions and applying molecular technologies to questions in plant biology, crop health and biosecurity.

I am particularly interested in the development and validation of rapid, sensitive and field-deployable diagnostic methods for plant pathogens, including qPCR, isothermal amplification approaches such as RPA and LAMP, and CRISPR-Cas-based detection systems. My research also encompasses diagnostic assay design and validation, emerging and exotic plant diseases, pathogen surveillance, molecular epidemiology, and the translation of laboratory-based technologies into practical tools for plant disease management and biosecurity.

My broader interests include plant molecular and cellular biology, RNA biology, gene expression and regulation, RNA movement and cell-to-cell communication in plants, live-cell molecular imaging, genomics and genome-wide approaches to understanding biological processes. During my postdoctoral research at Cornell University, I worked on developing live-imaging approaches to track mobile RNA molecules in plants and genome-wide systems for the discovery of mobile RNAs, further developing my interest in RNA trafficking, plant cell biology and molecular regulation.

Overall, I am interested in integrating molecular biology, genomics, imaging and diagnostic technologies to address fundamental and applied questions in plant science, with applications ranging from understanding molecular processes within plants to improving plant health, disease detection and biosecurity.