Natalie Deans

I’m working on a new collaborative project, engineering a terpene-depleted chassis in tomato fruit for production of high value terpenes. The goal of this project is to eliminate the factors required for making native triterpenes and carotenoids in fruit to allow expression of biosynthetic pathways from other organisms for sustainable production of high value terpenes. I’m working to identify the genes required to make fruit triterpenes and carotenoids and generating knockouts of these genes to validate their role in terpene biosynthesis. When I’m not in the lab, I enjoy baking, crocheting, nature walks with my dog, trying new food from around the world, and spending time with my family.