Anna Koltunow carries out research on mechanisms of fruit and seed production in plants, in particular apomixis (an asexual form of seed formation in plants).

Her work has led to the understanding of mechanisms controlling seedless fruit formation and produced seedless fruit in tomatoes and citrus. Her pioneering work in apomixis, developing and using an apomict species where, remarkably, female gametes form without meiosis and seeds develop in the absence of paternal fertilisation as a genetic and molecular model has identified similarities and differences in the mechanisms controlling apomixis and sexual seed formation. 

Anna’s discoveries are being used in developing crops with transformational productivity improvements in developing countries.