Rana Ellen Munns
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Rana Ellen Munns FAA is an Australian botanist whose primary research has been to determine the traits that underpin salinity tolerance and adaptation to drought in crop plants.[1][2] Rana was born in Sydney Australia and attended the University of Sydney, receiving her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry in 1966. She completed her Ph.D. in 1972 to begin a lifelong course of research on salt tolerance of plants first as a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and later at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra.[2] In the early 1990s, she found that sodium exclusion was an important trait associated with the salt tolerance in wheat using a seedling stage assay.[3] This work culminated in understanding wheat grain yield in saline soils in terms of genetic components that could be improved by an ancestral transporter gene.[4] This research eventually led to a cultivar of wheat that yielded 25% more on saline soils that in farmers' fields and is used by over thirty wheat seed companies globally.[5]
Rana Ellen Munns | |
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Born | Sydney, Australia |
Education | BSc 1966 Biochemistry Department, University of Sydney
Doctor of Philosophy 1972, CSIRO Plant Physiology Unit, University of Sydney. Research Fellow, 1977-1980, Department of Agronomy, University of Western Australia |
Occupation(s) | Botanist, plant scientist |