During his PhD in plant breeding in Iran, Mohammad Barati joined the CNRGV team for a period of six months from March to September 2014. His research group is interested in studying the response of barley to drought stress. Drought is one of the major challenges affecting crop productivity and yield. Transcription factors are major players in water stress signaling pathway. Previous experiments have shown that he WRKY transcription factors play a major in abiotic stress signaling networks. During his training course at CNRGV, Mohammad will characterize WRKY transcription factors in barley varieties using BAC library approach.