Cesar Augusto Diniz Xavier

Bio

I am a postdoctoral scholar working in the Plant-Virus-Vector Interactions lab under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Anna E. Whitfield. The goal of my research is to develop viral vectors for rapid improvement of plant traits towards sustainable and more secure food production. One of my primary research interests has been the development of delivery systems based on viral vectors to deliver genome editing reagents into the plant cell to perform DNA-free genome editing in maize. To achieve this goal, I have been using the plant rhabdovirus, maize mosaic virus (MMV), as a model system. By integrating fundamental and applied research we expect to develop a new generation of safe biotechnological tools based on viral vectors for crop improvement.