Kelly is a geneticist who has worked in barley genetics research since completing her PhD. Much of her research has been on two main aspects of grain composition, the plant cell wall (including (1,3;1,4)-β- glucan, arabinoxylan and phenolic acids), and micronutrient content. She identifies and characterizes genes responsible for these traits using a powerful combination of high-density marker sets to carry out statistical genetic analysis and genetic resources (including natural germplasm, mutants and CRISPR-Cas9 gene edited lines) to learn more about how these genes ultimately influence the trait of interest. Kelly has utilizing georeferenced datasets to understand more about genetic adaptation to a range of environmental conditions and how this can be applied to facilitate the development of germplasm suitable for future predicted climates.
Previous work as a postdoctoral research associate at the James Hutton Institute involved fine mapping, identification and characterisation of genes influencing morphological traits in barley such as spike density (ZEOCRITON), awn development (LKS1) and glume development (Trd1). This was carried out as part of the EU funded BARCODE project with Robbie Waugh, Arnis Druka [2], Nils Stein and Michele Morgante.
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2136-245X
[2] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/Arnis-Druka