Marina Oliva

Dr. Marina Oliva is a Research Fellow at the School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, and is affiliated with the ARC Centre for Plant Energy Biology. Her research focuses on plant molecular biology with particular emphasis on gene expression, plant development, and single-cell analysis in Arabidopsis.

Dr. Oliva's research interests center around understanding plant development at the molecular level, particularly in Arabidopsis. Her work explores gene expression patterns, promoter regions, and transcriptional regulation during key developmental processes including seed germination and root development. She has pioneered approaches in single-cell analysis to investigate spatiotemporal dynamics of plant cell identities and has developed innovative techniques like PHYTOMap for 3D spatial gene expression analysis in plant tissues.

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward integrating advanced genomic technologies with plant biology, particularly in the areas of single-cell transcriptomics, spatial gene expression mapping, and CRISPR-based genetic circuits for controlling plant gene expression. Her work bridges molecular biology, computational approaches, and plant physiology to understand fundamental mechanisms of plant development.

Dr. Oliva is an active researcher within the ARC Centre for Plant Energy Biology, collaborating with leading scientists including Professor Ryan Lister. Her work has gained significant attention in the scientific community, with multiple publications in high-impact journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Nature Plants, and The New Phytologist. She has contributed to several important datasets related to CRISPRi-based circuits for genetic computation in plants, which have been widely shared through Zenodo and have received substantial attention across social media and news outlets.