Mikhail Nasrallah

Much of Nasrallah's research has focused on the molecular genetic analysis of self-incompatibility in plants of the crucifer (Brassicaceae) family.

[6][7][8] As a doctoral student at Cornell, Nasrallah made a major scientific contribution by devising a new approach to the molecular analysis of self-incompatibility.

Working in Brassica, he focused on the stigma, which is the structure that caps the pistil and at the surface of which "self" pollen grains are inhibited in self-incompatible crucifers.

[11] The stigma molecule identified by Nasrallah was later used by his team at Cornell as a launching pad for a detailed analysis of the S locus, whose large number of variants (classically known as "alleles") control recognition of "self" pollen in self-incompatible Brassica plants.

[16][17] This mechanism of self-recognition has now been shown to operate in all tested self-incompatible species from various crucifer genera, such as Brassica, Arabidopsis, and Capsella.