The molecular, cellular and biochemical responses of plants to water-deficit stress is the central, and long-term, interest of my research program. My laboratory is pursuing a two-pronged strategy, one basic and one applied, with the ultimate goal of improving drought-tolerance and yield stability within crop plants. Our basic research utilizes the desiccation-tolerant moss Tortula ruralis as a model system for studying post-transcriptional gene control, cellular repair mechanisms, and as a source of novel tolerance-associated genes. Another applied research area is analyzing the biochemical, molecular and physiological mechanisms that control yield stability under drought-stress in soybean (Glycine max).