Hikmet Budak PhD

Hikmet Budak is a Chief Science Officer at the  Montana Bioagriculture, Inc. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. His major research foci include biotic and abiotic stress responses in cereals, and the components of stress tolerance mechanisms, including post-transcriptional regulators, such as microRNAs. 

Hikmet and his team carry out comparative analyses on the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome levels to dissect stress response mechanisms, particularly drought. He is also interested in understanding more about gene transmission and silencing. 

Hikmet has been an IWGSC Coordinating Committee member since 2005. As part of the IWGSC, Hikmet and his team have completed the survey sequence of wheat chromosome 5D and contributed to the survey sequencing of 1AL. This result, along with the survey sequence of 20 other bread wheat chromosomes, was published in Science in July 2014. Hikmet and his team have also completed the physical maps of chromosome 1AL and 5DS and collaborated with Bayer CropScience on the development of the physical map for 5DL. Recently, he received two grants from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, and the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Livestock to produce the reference sequence of both arms of chromosome 5D. 

Additionally, Hikmet’s team is involved in the DROught-tolerant yielding PlantS (DROPS) Project, an FP7 EU Project, and is currently working at the international level on chromosome-based survey sequencing of Triticum dicoccoides, wild emmer wheat.