Post-doctoral Researcher and Associate Curator

Email: batapola.amarasinghe@mail.wvu.edu

B.S., 1992, Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
Ph.D, 2000, Plant Science, Australian National University, Australia
Post-doc, 2003, CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia

My PhD was in the area of plant membrane transport. For my doctorate, I cloned, characterized and localized a high affinity nitrate transporter from soybean. I also learned some valuable molecular biology skills and developed a strong interest in looking further at functions of plants, especially nutrient transport, at molecular level. After completion of my graduate studies in Canberra, I returned to the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, where I worked as a senior lecturer in plant molecular biology. During this time, I continued to work on the molecular biology of nitrate and ammonium transport in rice and received further training at the Max Planck institute for molecular plant physiology in Germany and in the ICGEB New Delhi. In 2003 I accepted a position as postdoctoral fellow at the CSIRO Plant Industry Canberra, where I worked with the cotton biotechnology group. I was involved in a project to isolate novel promoters from cotton in order to drive strong transgene expression. I employed a microarray-based approach to identify candidate promoters. These promoters then were isolated and tested in greenhouse and field-grown transgenic cotton.

I joined the INVAM in December 2004, being quite a novice to the world of mycorrhizal fungi. The potential of using molecular tools for addressing some of the mysteries surrounding these fungi and also to improve development and maintenance of INVAM, is enormous. I look forward to a fruitful time ahead with mycorrhiza and with the friendly group of people here. Currently, I am expanding our local database of 25S ribosomal RNA gene sequences to include both described and undescribed species in the collection, developing microsatellite profiles for comparative purposes, and exploring several other approaches for species-level discrimination.