The Stress Granule Lab is led by Professor Monika Chodasiewicz. The group studies stress-specific complexes (biomolecular condensates) of small molecules, proteins, and mRNAs in plants. With the use of biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology, they study membrane-less foci formed in plant cells under stress conditions. The second aim of the group is to discover the stress-specific components of desert plants which make them resistant to stressful environmental conditions by studying small molecule-protein complexes with biochemical methods combined with molecular biology. The team intends to build a map of stress-specific small molecule-protein complexes to further dissect the mode of action of stress specific complexes.