Anna Dickinson
- PhD Postgraduate Student
Contact
About
Anna Dickinson is a PhD Postgraduate Student at the Crop Science Centre as part of the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.
Qualifications
2025 - MSc by Research in Biological Sciences - University of Bristol, England
2024 - BSc in Biology (First Class Honours) - University of Bristol, England
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Awards & Fellowships
2025 - BSPP MSc/MRes Bursary
2024 - Rose Bracher Memorial Prize for the highest programme mark in BSc Biology
2023 - BSPP Funded Studentship - Rothamsted Research
Research
Research Group
Research Overview
Plant-parasitic nematodes are major agricultural pests that establish long-term feeding relationships with crop plants, diverting nutrients and severely reducing yield. However, it remains poorly understood how nematodes coordinate gene expression throughout infection - both their own and that of the host plant - to establish feeding sites. In my PhD project, I investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying feeding site establishment. First, nematodes must precisely regulate effector expression according to their position within the root; I investigate how they localise within roots by identifying candidate sensory receptors using single-nucleus sequencing approaches. Second, nematodes must transcriptionally reprogramme host cells to engineer multinucleate feeding sites, which I investigate by mapping transcriptional reprogramming across cell types and time. Ultimately, this work aims to identify molecular components indispensable for parasitism, providing potential targets for engineering durable crop resistance.