Akhona Myoli

Akhona Myoli is a PhD candidate from South Africa who joined the CPSBB team for a 4-month secondment as part of the CropPrime project. She is enrolled at the University of Johannesburg where she specializes in plant and computational metabolomics research. Her work is anchored on her passion to converge science and indigenous knowledge systems to highlight and promote the sustainable use of South African medicinal plants. Currently, her PhD research is an interdisciplinary omics study that seeks to investigate the influence of plant-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) on key secondary metabolic pathways and the downstream metabolite profiles of medicinal plants.

At CPSBB, Ms. Myoli will work at the Molecular stress physiology department under the guidance of Dr. Sujeeth Neerakkal from BioAtlantis Ltd. and Dr. Veselin Petrov from CPSBB. Her task will be to investigate the mechanisms of action of a biostimulant prepared from the seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum, known to alleviate the symptoms of various abiotic stressors, and more specifically the potential involvement of salicylic acid-dependent signaling pathways. This will be achieved by characterization of the abiotic stress mitigating properties of the biostimulant on Arabidopsis thaliana mutants compromised in salicylic acid accumulation both in in vitro conditions and on soil.