Rana Ellen Munns is an Australian botanist whose primary research has been to determine the traits that underpin salinity tolerance and adaptation to drought in crop plants. Rana was born in Sydney Australia and attended the University of Sydney, receiving her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry in 1966. She completed her Ph.D. in 1972 to begin a lifelong course of research on salt tolerance of plants first as a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and later at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra. In the early 1990s, she found that sodium exclusion was an important trait associated with the salt tolerance in wheat using a seedling stage assay.Schachtman, DP, and Rana Munns. “Sodium Accumulation in Leaves of Triticum Species That Differ in Salt Tolerance.” Australian Journal Plant Physiology, vol. 19, no. 3, 1992, pp. 331–40, . This work culminated in understanding wheat grain yield in saline soils in terms of genetic components that could be improved by an ancestral transporter gene.Byrt, C.S., et al., The Na transporter, TaHKT1;5-D, limits shoot Na+ accumulation in bread wheat. Plant Journal, 2014. 80(3): p. 516-526. This research eventually led to a cultivar of wheat that yielded 25% more on saline soils that in farmers' fields and is used by over thirty wheat seed companies globally.Xu, B., et al., Structural variations in wheat HKT1;5 underpin differences in Na+ transport capacity. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 2018. 75(6): p. 1133-1144.
Career
BSc (Hons 1st Class) 1966 Biochemistry Department, University of Sydney Doctor of Philosophy 1972, CSIRO Plant Physiology Unit, University of Sydney. Chloroplast Development 1973–1976 Senior Tutor, Macquarie University, NSW 1977–1980 Research Fellow, Department of Agronomy, University of Western Australia 1981–2005 Research Scientist CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra 2005–2010 Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra 2011–present Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Plant Industry, CanberraCSIRO (http://www.csiro.au/people/rana.munns.aspx) 2011–2013 Winthrop Research Professor, School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia 2014–present Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, jointly with School of Plant BiologyARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (http://www.plantenergy.uwa.edu.au/people/)
Former Editor-in-chief of Functional Plant Biology
Honours and awards 2006 Corresponding Member of American Society of Plant Biologists 2012 Thomson Reuters Australia Citation Award for most highly cited plant scientist during 2002–2012
References