Professor Brande Wulff is a molecular plant pathologist and geneticist whose research focuses on cereal disease resistance. He joined KAUST in 2021, following a decade of research at the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK. He is the founder of the Open Wild Wheat Consortium (www.openwildwheat.org), an international community of researchers that crowdfunds genomic resources and studies of wild wheat progenitors. His work aims to translate foundational plant genetics into practical applications for global food security. 

Professor Wulff’s research focuses on identifying and deploying disease resistance genes in wheat. His group uses high-throughput DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to clone genes responsible for resistance to major wheat diseases and to explore the mechanisms of non-canonical immune receptors. He is particularly interested in leveraging the genetic diversity of wild wheat relatives to engineer durable resistance in cultivated varieties. His long-term goal is to improve crop resilience through precision breeding informed by molecular pathology.