Welcome to the Arif Lab
About Us
The population of the world will increase by 2.4 billion people in next three decades. New approaches are needed to sustainably increase global crop productivity to feed the growing world’s population. Sustainable disease management is critical to continue stable production of a safe food supply with high yield. Our group is using ‘omics’ technologies to understand the disease epidemiology. We are working on molecular mechanism of host adaptation and interactions, phylogenomics and evolution, microbiome, and bioinformatics. Also, we develop novel next-generation detection methods based of NGS and computational analyses for applications in routine diagnostics, biosecurity and microbial forensics.
Lab Director
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Dr. Mohammad Arif is a Principal Investigator and Associate Professor at the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, CTAHR.
Dr. Arif is an associated faculty of C-Maiki Institute (Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation). Currently, Dr. Arif is Academic Editor for the Frontiers in Microbiology (Plant-Microbe Interactions) and Nature Publishing Group Journal “Scientific Reports”. Dr. Arif is also editing a Special Issue on "Genome-wide analyses of Pectobacterium and Dickeya species" for the journal of "Frontiers in Plant Sciences". |
LAB NEWS
Guest Editor for "Frontiers in Plant Science and Frontiers in Microbiology"
Dr. Arif has agreed to edit a Special Issue "Genome-wide Analyses of Pectobacterium and Dickeya Species" for the section Plant Pathogen Interactions and Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants.
This Research Topic welcomes—but is not limited to—submissions that cover a broad range of comparative and functional genomic studies on the soft rot pathogens Pectobacterium and Dickeya, and incorporate aspects of host plant physiology:
This Research Topic welcomes—but is not limited to—submissions that cover a broad range of comparative and functional genomic studies on the soft rot pathogens Pectobacterium and Dickeya, and incorporate aspects of host plant physiology:
- Comparative genomics to understand genome constituents and heterogeneity
- Genome-based bacterial evolution, phylogenomics, and phylogenetics
- Genome-wide analyses of pathogenicity determinants and their roles in plant- bacterial interactions
- Genome-wide analyses of antimicrobial components and CRISPR-Cas systems
- Functional genomics
Guest Editor for "International Journal of Molecular Sciences"
Dr. Arif has agreed to edit a Special Issue "Advances on Bacterial Genomics" for the section "Molecular Microbiology".
Print Special Issue Flyer
Print Special Issue Flyer
New Graduate Students
Shu-Cheng ChuangStarted in Spring 2020 for PhD program
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Diksha KlairStarted in Spring 2020 for MS program
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Editor of "Scientific Reports"
Dr. Arif has accepted the invitation to join the Editorial Board of Nature Publishing Group Journal “Scientific Reports”. Scientific Reports is an online, open access journal and publish robust, scientifically-valid, original research from all areas of the natural and clinical sciences, led by the same principles of editorial rigour as other Nature Research journals.
New Graduate Student Saya Aoki
Saya Aoki started in Fall 2019 for PhD program
1st Graduate from Phytobacteriology lab
Adrian Larrea-Sarmiento started in Spring 2017 and graduated (MS) in December 2018. She worked on comparative genomics, molecular interactions and diagnostics. She was outstanding and generated data for 6 peer-reviewed publications (3 as senior author and other 3 as 2nd author). She won two awards.
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New Graduate Students
Sujan PaudelStarted in Fall 2018 for MS program
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Samudra GunarathneStarted in Fall 2018 for MS program
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Dr. Dobhal join the lab as a Junior Researcher
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Dr. Shefali DobhalStarted in Spring 2018
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Senior Editor of Plant Health Progress
Dr. Arif has accepted the invitation to serve American Phytopathological Society's Journal "Plant Health Progress" as a Senior Editor. His term begins in January 2018 and will last in December 2020. Plant Health Progress is a multidisciplinary journal covering all aspects of applied plant health management in agriculture and horticulture.
New Graduate Students
Gamze BolukStarted in Fall 2017 for PhD program
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Dario ArizalaStarted in Spring 2018 for MS program
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Adriana WON PEPS Best MS Poster Award in CTAHR Student Research Symposium 2017
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April 2017: Adriana Larrea won PEPS Best MS Poster Award in CTAHR Student Research Symposium 2017. The title of her Research Poster was "Core- and Pan-Genome Analyses of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris: Black Rot Pathogen of Crucifers"
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Plant Biosecurity in Theory and Practices
May 2017: Arif and Adriana participated in a one week long course of Plant Biosecurity in Theory and Practice at Biosecurity Research Institute, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Arif was an invited speaker and delivered a talk on "The Select Agent Rathayibacter toxicus: High Consequence Bacteria of Biosecurity Concern". He was also an instructor for hands on training inside the containment facility.
First student in our program!
Spring 2017: Adriana Larrea from Ecuador started in January 2017 as a first student in our program. She will be working on Clavibacter michiganensis.