Her lab's research focuses on understanding the innate ability of plants to defend themselves against pathogen infection. Using the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana to understand new regulatory components of plant disease resistance, Dr. Li sees a potential application in environmentally-friendly agricultural disease control. Arabidopsis thaliana is an annual native to most of Europe, Asia and northwestern Africa. It was the first plant genome to be entirely sequenced and was designated as a model organism in 1998. There are several features that make Arabidopsis thaliana (commonly known as thale cress or mouse-ear cress) an ideal model organism, including: a rapid life cycle (about 6 weeks from germination to mature seed), small genome and the availability of mutant lines (hence variation in disease resistance) and genomic resources through Stock Centres.