Mrs Kokila Wickramanayake Pathirannahalage

I completed my BSc. in agriculture and plantation management and specialized in biotechnology at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka (2010-2015). Then I pursued my MSc. in Agrobiotechnology at Justus Liebig University, Germany (2017-2020). Before coming to Plymouth, I was working as a research assistant at Qatar University in Qatar.

Research interests

Ensuring food security is one of the major challenges in the current world. According to the scientific literature, there is no option other than to decrease the yield losses to reduce the yield gap and guarantee global food security. To develop the solutions for these agricultural goals, a better understanding of the mechanisms of the plant immunity system and plant-pathogen interaction is required.  Accordingly, my current research interest focuses on understanding the universality of the plastid behavior upon pathogen invasions. In this regard, state-of-the-art microscopies, such as confocal microscopy with genetically encoded biosensors and several electron microscopes, will be used to obtain high-resolution subcellular images.