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Garima Dubey

Candidature

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title

Drought resilient cotton: Combining synthetic biology solutions to improve cotton productivity under future water limited and heat stress conditions

Project Summary

Garima DubeyThe severity, intensity and frequency of extreme climatic conditions such as concurrent heatwaves and droughts are increasing with every 0.5 °C increment in global warming. These changing weather patterns severely affect cotton growth and development resulting in the reduction of global productivity. Australian cotton industry is worth A$2 billion. The recent drought of 2018- 2019 resulted in ~60% loss in Australian cotton production than normal. Wild cotton relatives growing in hot and arid regions are genetically very diverse and we speculate that they harbour traits for resilience in drought and heat tolerance and could contribute to drought and thermotolerance in cultivated cotton. Understanding the effect of drought and heat stress on plant cellular transport mechanisms can provide insight into mechanisms to fortify to improve crop productivity under challenging conditions. The overall aim of my PhD project is to investigate the effects of drought and heat stress on physiological, biochemical and molecular processes in diverse cotton species. The RNA sequencing and proteomic analysis will help in better understanding of the molecular response of cotton to water deficits by identifying genes and proteins that respond to drought stress as well as that are only differentially expressed in drought-tolerant or sensitive genotypes. Collectively, this study will utilize the latest omics and synthetic biology technologies to understand the role of aquaporins in water transport and CO2 diffusion in cotton. This will provide insight into the thermal thresholds of drought recovery associated with water transport and provide new knowledge on the role of aquaporins to deliver improvements in water and CO2 transport. The knowledge generated from this study will be beneficial in identifying and utilising drought and thermotolerance traits of wild species as targets for developing more productive and resilient cotton crop in future.

Awards and Grants

  • Australian Cotton Research Conference Travel scholarship awarded 2022 and 2023
  • Postgraduate Student Travel Grant awarded to attend 2023 Australian Society of Plant Scientists Conference (ASPS), Hobart, Tasmania

Cottoninfo Researcher Profile

https://www.cottoninfo.com.au/publications/meet-garima-dubey-researcher-profile

Conference contributions

Oral Presentations

Garima Dubey, Demi Sargent, Brian J. Atwell, David T. Tissue, Brendan Choat, Zhonghua Chen, Warren C. Conaty, Robert E. Sharwood- Drought resilient cotton: Developing a new biochemical understanding of developing drought resistant cotton. 2023 Australian Cotton Research conference (AACS), Toowoomba, QLD, Australia.

Posters

Garima Dubey, Demi Sargent, Brian J. Atwell, David T. Tissue, Brendan Choat, Zhonghua Chen, Warren C. Conaty, Robert E. Sharwood- Unveiling Drought Tolerance Traits in Wild Cotton Relatives. 2023 Australian Society of Plant Scientists Conference (ASPS), Hobart, Tasmania

Publications

Dubey G, Phillips AL, Kemp DJ, Atwell BJ, (2025) 'Physiological and structural traits contribute to thermotolerance in wild Australian cotton species', Annals of Botany, vol.135, no.3, pp 577-588

Garima Dubey, Aaron L Phillips, Brian J Atwell (2024). Physiological and structural traits contribute to thermotolerance in wild Australian cotton species, Annals of Botany, mcae098, https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcae098

Supervisors

Dr Robert Sharwood, Professor David Tissue, Professor Brian J. Atwell (Macquarie University), Dr Warren Conaty (CSIRO, Narrabri), Dr Demi Sargent, Professor Zhonghua Chen, Professor Brenden Choat