This question guides much of my curiosity as a molecular geneticist. Plants already communicate with the world around them. They sense stress, recruit microbial partners, and reshape their own gene expression to survive. What inspires me is imagining how we can use that natural intelligence to build a more sustainable future.

Agriculture is facing enormous challenges. Climate change, soil degradation, and the rising cost of fertilizers make it clear that the way we grow food needs to evolve. I often think about the potential of crops that can partner more efficiently with beneficial microbes, improve their own nutrient uptake, or adapt faster to environmental stress, all using the molecular communication systems they already have.

In my lab, we study how RNAs and other molecular signals help plants respond to their environment and connect with the microbes that live around them. These tiny messages could be part of the roadmap toward crops that are more resilient, more self sufficient, and better equipped for the world we are growing into, whether that is on Earth or beyond it.

I find a lot of hope in this work. Every experiment, every dataset, and every unexpected result adds one more piece to a future where plants help us solve some of our most urgent challenges. There is so much potential waiting in their biology, and we are only beginning to scratch the surface.