Soham Mukhopadhyay

Research Interests

I study the evolutionary arms race between plants and the pathogens that colonize them. I am especially interested in how these pathogens manipulate their hosts at the molecular level. My current work focuses on gall wasps, which are some of nature's best genetic engineers. A female gall wasp lays her eggs inside plant tissue, such as a leaf, stem or bud. As the larva develops, the plant grows a new structure called a gall around it. The gall shelters the larva and supplies it with food until it emerges as an adult. I am working to identify the wasp proteins that trigger gall formation and the plant pathways that gall-formers hijack to reshape plant development. To address these questions, I use comparative genomics, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), AlphaFold-based structure prediction and large-scale omics analysis.

The study of galls has already transformed agriculture. Research on crown gall disease showed that the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens inserts a piece of its own DNA, called T-DNA, into plant cells. This discovery became the foundation for genetically modified crops. Insect galls are far more spatially organized than crown galls, with distinct tissue layers arranged in a precise pattern. Learning how wasps build these structures could give us even better tools to control plant growth and engineer new crop traits. It could also help us protect crops from gall-forming pathogens and pests.