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Welcome to the Dassanayake Lab Website

In our lab, we study how organisms adapt or evolve to live in harsh environments using comparative genomics and functional genetics.  

We mostly focus on extreme plants (i.e. extremophytes) and compare them to more stress-sensitive species in a comparative framework using genomes, transcriptomes, and metabolites ranging from single cell resolution to entire organism-level.

The overarching goal of our research 

is to understand complex and fascinating messages embedded in understudied wild plants to be able to use that insight in innovative crop designs much needed in a time of climate change.

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