Core team




Professor of Plant Science at KAUST; Director, Center for Desert Agriculture.
Track record in plant stress biology and leveraging beneficial microbes for climate-resilient crops.
Supports scientific strategy: strain discovery priorities, trial logic, and research partnerships.

Senior Research Scientist, Center for Desert Agriculture (KAUST); Coordinator of the DARWIN21 initiative.
Focused on biological solutions for soil health, nutrient assimilation, and abiotic/biotic stress in arid and semi-arid agriculture.
Supports translation and data-backed validation: desert-microbe know-how, microbial characterization, and scale-up pathways.
Advisors

Expertise: biofunctional polymer materials and glycobiotechnology; bridging polymer chemistry with bioactive/biological systems.
Contributes with material strategy for encapsulation matrices (function, stability, release), and de-risking scale-relevant material choices.

Expertise: glyco-/polymeric nanogels and biofilm-related biofunctional materials.
Contributes with formulation development (polymeric carriers + biomolecules), plus assay design to measure stability, activity, and performance of formulated bio-systems.
We partner with