Dimitra Papantoniou

My research aims at assessing the modulation of tomato defense responses caused by beneficial soil fungi. The study involves the use of Solanum lycopersicum plants, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and Trichoderma spp. to assess their impact on the performance of aboveground chewing and sucking insect pests as well as their natural enemies (third trophic level). The research deploys a combination of transcriptomic and metabolomics approaches to unravel the molecular and chemical mechanisms underlying microbial induced resistance. In this context, we will work on different lines of tomato plants and our analyses will be complemented with assays on insect performance and behavior which can be directly related to microbe- induced changes in volatile and non- volatile metabolomes.

This project is part of the EU Marie Curie ITN MiRA.

Microbial induced resistance, beneficial soil fungi, above-ground interactions, gene expression, phytohormonal crosstalk, sustainable agricultural pest control

2018- now

Doctoral researcher in Molecular Interaction Ecology (MIE) research group at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

2013- 2015

Master of Science in Horticultural Genetics and Biotechnology in the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Greece

• Master thesis "Sub-cloning of cassettes comprising tomato P4H1 and P4H3 cDNAs with or without their promoter sequences into two types of binary vectors with epitope tags and agro-mediated transformation in tomato."

2007- 2014

Bachelor’s degree in the School of Biotechnology, Food, and Development, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece

• Bachelor thesis "Study on the grassy weeds that commonly interfere with cereal crops and how to confront them using different types of herbicides."