People

Dr. Van Eck has extensive experience in studying plant–insect interactions and plant disease resistance. His research uses cereal crops and aphids as a model, and tools such as genomics, electrophysiology and bioinformatics to understand plant immunity. Dr. Van Eck grew up in South Africa, and its dizzying biodiversity inspired his love of plants.

Project: Micropropagation of the orchid Coelogyne cristata from seed.

Project: Micropropagation of the gesneriad Streptocarpus woodii from leaf explant.

Project: Micropropagation of the stapeliad Huernia zebrina using tissue culture techniques.

Project: Micropropagation of the green velvet alocasia (Alocasia micholitziana) using plant tissue culture.

Project: Characterizing the gut microbiome of Rhopalosiphum padi and its influence on aphid virulence on cultivated barley.

Project: Characterizing the antixenotic responses of an array of wild barley accessions to feeding by the bird cherry-oat aphid.

Project: Genome-wide identification and analysis of chitinases in barley; characterizing the oxidative burst of wild barley in response to aphid feeding.

Project: A bioinformatic pipeline for the identification and characterization of LOX genes in barley.

Project: Using Electrical Penetration Graph (EPG) to identify resistance and susceptibility to the bird cherry-oat aphid in wild accessions of barley.

Project: What's the fuss about fuzz? Characterizing trichome density in Minnesota-native strawberry populations.

Project: Differential gene expression of stress response-related genes in barley and three accessions of its wild relative in response to infestation by the bird cherry-oat aphid.

Project: Idiosyncratic changes in gene expression in wild relatives of barley during drought stress. 

Project: The phytobiomes associated with Minnesota populations of the wild strawberry, Fragaria virginiana.