Research activities in the Institute include the following areas: genetics, evolution, cellular biology, computational biology, developmental biology, plant physiology, stress physiology, ecophysiology, physiology of agricultural production and relationship between agricultural plants and their environment, agricultural genomics, precision agriculture and remote sensing, breeding, biotechnology, genome editing, applied ecology, nature preservation and management of open areas.

Current topics, include leaf, flower, fruit and root development, cell differentiation, plant responses to environmental stresses, water uptake and homeostasis, redox signaling, hormone signaling and responses, chloroplast biology, tomato genetics, pepper breeding, metabolic engineering, nanotechnology and materials for the future, cell wall composition, herbicide activity and more. 

Various species are used for these studies, including crop plants, such as tomato, petunia, sorghum, potato, barley and wheat, and model plants, such as Arabidopsis and Brachypodium. 

Major topics and related faculties

Development

leaf, flower, fruit, root, meristem:
Prof. Naomi Ori, Dr. Idan Efroni. Prof. Alon Samach, Prof. David Weiss, Dr. Smadar Harpaz-Saad, Dr. Leor Eshed Williams

Physiology and molecular physiology 

hormone signaling and responses, stress physiology, water homeostasis, redox signaling:
Prof Menachem Moshelion, Dr. Assaf Mosquna, Dr. Shilo Rosenwasser, Prof. Shmuel Wolf, Prof. Yehoshua Saranga, Prof. Naomi Ori, Prof. David Weiss, Prof. Zvi Peleg

Plant biochemistry and metabolism

chloroplast biology, cell wall composition, protein degradation, secondary metabolism:
Prof. Zach Adam, Prof. Alexander Vainstein, Dr. Shilo Rosenwasser, Dr. Smadar Harpaz-Saad.

Genetics and Breeding

tomato genetics, wheat genetics, pepper breeding, OTLs:
Prof. Dani Zamir, Prof. Shahal Abbo, Prof. Yehoshua Saranga, Prof. Zvi Peleg, Dr. Yonatan Elkind

Biotechnology

metabolic engineering, nanotechnology, materials for the future:
Prof. Oded Shoseyov, Prof. Alexander Vainstein

Computational biology and precision agriculture

Dr. Tamar Friedlander, Dr. Idan Efroni, Dr. Ittai Herrmann

Ecology

ecosystem ecology, ecophysiology:
Dr. Efrat Shefer, Prof. Jose Gruenzweig