Plant Relationships: Fungal-Plant Interactions

Author Biography

Barry Scott was appointed the inaugural Professor of Molecular Genetics at Massey University in 1985. He was head of the Institute of Molecular Biosciences from 2008 to 2012. Early in his career, he made landmark contributions to the understanding of Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, reported in a seminal Nature paper in 1979. He then turned his attention to the fungal endophyte-grass symbiosis, which is economically important to New Zealand agriculture. His team was responsible for identifying the endophyte genes responsible for the biosynthesis of lolitrems and peramine, secondary metabolites unique to the symbiosis. The other major advance made by Professor Scott and his group was the demonstration that fungal synthesis of reactive oxygen species is essential for stable maintenance of the symbiosis. The results of this work were reported in two landmark papers published in Plant Cell in 2006. This discovery has led to a new and general framework for the studyof fungal-plant interactions. Professor Scott is an Emeritus Investigator in the BioProtection Research Centre, a National Centre of Research Excellence. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2010 and awarded a Humboldt Research Award in 2014. Carl H. Mesarich was conferred his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2012. Upon completion of his PhD, he spent four years as a postdoctoral scientist in the laboratories of Professor Pierre de Wit at Wageningen University in the Netherlands (2012–2014) and Associate Professor Matthew Templeton at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research (2015). Major highlights from his postdoctoral research included the identification of Avr5, an avirulence effector gene from the tomato leaf mold fungus, Cladosporium fulvum, as well as the characterization of an apoplastic effectorome for this fungus (published in Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions in 2014 and 2018, respectively). Since 2016, Dr. Mesarich has lead a research team at Massey University, New Zealand, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer in Plant Pathology, as well as an Associate Investigator for Bioprotection Aotearoa, a national Centre of Research Excellence. Much of his team’s research focuses on understanding how the fungal pathogens C. fulvum and Venturia inaequalis (scab disease of apple), as well as the oomycete Phytophthora agathidicida (dieback disease of kauri), cause disease and/or trigger host immunity through the deployment of effector proteins, with the goal of informing disease resistance breeding or selection programs.