Oliver Baars
Assistant Professor - Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology
Associate Faculty
Partners Building III 223
Area(s) of Expertise
We are interested in the interactions between microbes, primary producers (plants or phytoplankton), and the environment via secreted small molecules. Our goal is to reveal biological and chemical mechanisms that impact biogeochemical cycles, crop productivity, and human health. The vast majority of microbes cannot be cultured and analyzing the extreme complexity of mixtures of molecules with orders of magnitude differences in concentrations and activities is a challenge. Our studies make use of rapid developments in analytical instrumentation for profiling and characterizing relevant groups of secreted small molecules in an environmentally or agriculturally relevant context.