Interactions

Dec 21
IS-MPMI Interactions – Issue 4, 2022
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Issue 4 • 2022
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IS-MPMI is a partner society with the NSF-funded LEAPS Research Coordination Network, which helps support the Rooting Out Oppression Together and SHaring Our Outcomes Transparently (ROOT & SHOOT) program. ROOT & SHOOT is currently accepting travel award applications for members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicano/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS) to attend certain plant science conferences in 2023, including the IS-MPMI Congress. Applications for the ROOT & SHOOT Travel Awards are due January 9, 2023.
 
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Also in this issue...
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The program for the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress, which will be held July 16–20 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, will feature concurrent sessions with new and exciting speakers and topics suggested by IS-MPMI members. All 18 concurrent session slots have been filled based on proposals from members. Two premeeting workshops have been added to cover important topics.
 
On January 1, 2023, USDA-ARS researcher Timothy Friesen will take over as MPMI editor-in-chief. Dr. Friesen’s long-standing involvement with MPMI makes him uniquely qualified for the role. He and his editorial board plan to add new article categories to help boost the visibility of MPMI and maintain its status as the premier journal for plant–microbe interactions. IS-MPMI and MPMI sincerely thank Jeanne Harris for her dedication to and leadership of MPMI.
 
Explore the most cited and read papers published in MPMI in 2022.
 
Kick Off 2023 with the Next What's New in MPMI! Virtual Seminar
Register to hear Emma Gachomo present the Editor's Pick "Bradyrhizobium japonicum IRAT FA3 Alters Arabidopsis thaliana Root Architecture via Regulation of Auxin Efflux Transporters PIN2, PIN3, PIN7, and ABCB19" on January 17, 2023, and catch up with recent seminars presented by Kyungyong Seong and Yusuke Saijo.
 
Discover the Editor's Picks from the September, October, and November issues of MPMI.
  
We are always looking for content for Interactions. Please contact Interactions Editor-in-Chief Dennis Halterman with questions or article ideas.

Dec 21
ROOT & SHOOT Is Accepting Travel Award Applications for Members of SACNAS or MANRRS

Did you know that IS-MPMI is a partner society with the NSF-funded LEAPS Research Coordination Network? This partnership helps support the Rooting Out Oppression Together and SHaring Our Outcomes Transparently (ROOT & SHOOT) program, which aims to make plant science more equitable and inclusive. Part of this mission involves building strong connections with organizations that support people of marginalized identities, including members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicano/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS).

ROOT & SHOOT is currently accepting travel award applications for members of SACNAS or MANRRS to attend certain plant science conferences in 2023—and the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress, which will be held from July 16 to 20 in Rhode Island, is included in this list! These awards provide up to $3,000 to defray travel costs for a mentee/mentor pair that includes at least one member of SACNAS or MANRRS.

Applications for the ROOT & SHOOT Travel Awards are due January 9, 2023. We encourage all SACNAS or MANRRS members who are planning to travel to the IS-MPMI Congress from within the United States or internationally on a U.S. carrier (e.g., United, American, Delta) to take advantage of this amazing opportunity.

You can find the application, requirements, and more information on the ROOT & SHOOT website.

Discover more about the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress here. Abstract submission is now open through March 1, 2023.

Dec 21
Preliminary Lineup of Concurrent Sessions and Workshops for 2023 IS-MPMI Congress Announced

The 2023 IS-MPMI Congress will be held July 16–20 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. The goal of the IS-MPMI Board of Directors is to feature new and exciting speakers and topics. This year IS-MPMI members were asked to submit their ideas for concurrent sessions to be held throughout the meeting.

Submissions were accepted from all members but were particularly encouraged from students, postdocs, and early-career scientists in order to give members of these groups a chance to take a leadership role and propose interesting and engaging science programming for the 2023 congress.

A total of 26 proposals were received for the 18 session slots in the agenda. Some of the proposals were focused on duplicate or similar topics, and in these cases, it made the most sense to merge the topics into a single session. Other proposals were asked to share a 2-hour timeslot with another session. In these cases, each topic will be covered but will only have 1 hour. This resulted in the filling of all 18 concurrent session slots with proposals from the membership and the addition of a premeeting workshop to cover important topics. Here is the tentative lineup of concurrent sessions and workshops for the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress:

1. Biomolecular condensation-mediated signaling during plant–microbe interactions

2. Biotrophy and necrotrophy in the plant–microbe dynamic (ECR TED talks)

3. Cell autonomous and cell-type-specific immunity

4. Environmental impacts on plant–pathogen/microbiome interactions

5. Extracellular RNA-mediated interactions and crop protection strategies

6. Suppression of innate immunity during nitrogen-fixing symbiosis, causes and consequences

7a. Revisiting the publishing system to promote open science and adopt better practices in the assessment of research: Trust "preprint and exist" and forget "publish or perish"

7b. Showcasing undergraduate research and mentoring in plant–microbe interactions

8. The making of a story—Building narratives and communicating science effectively

9. Organelle functions in plant–microbe interactions

10. Molecular diagnostics-point-of-care plant disease diagnosis

11. Peptides as diverse molecular messengers in plant–microbe Interactions

12. Vascular pathogens and their hosts

13. Plant-derived metabolites and microbial organisms—A complex interactive relationship

14. PRR evolution in model and crop plants

15. Microbiomes

16. Systems and spatial biology in host–pathogen interactions (networks)

17. The long and short of it: Intercellular communication in MPMI

18a. The next big idea @ IS-MPMI 2023

18b. Who wants to be a MPMIllionaire?

Workshop 1a. AlphaFold user workshop

Workshop 1b. Biological sequence modeling and genome mining to discover virulence factors in plant pathogens​

Dec 21
IS-MPMI Welcomes Timothy Friesen as Incoming Editor-in-Chief of MPMI

With the start of 2023 comes new year's resolutions…and editorial board transitions. On January 1, 2023, outgoing MPMI Editor-in-Chief Jeanne Harris will hand over the proverbial reins to USDA-ARS researcher Timothy Friesen, whose long-standing involvement with MPMI makes him uniquely qualified for the role of editor-in-chief.

Friesen has been involved with MPMI at all stages of publication as a reviewer, author, associate editor, and senior editor. "I believe strongly in supporting society journals, and MPMI is one of my favorite journals," he remarked, "and therefore, I can't imagine a better way to serve the IS-MPMI research community than by being editor-in-chief."

There is much to anticipate during Friesen's term. To boost the visibility of MPMI and maintain its status as the premier journal for plant–microbe interactions, Friesen and his editorial board plan to add new article categories, including the H.H. Flor Distinguished Review series. These will be invited reviews written by scientists who have made significant scientific contributions in an area involving plant–microbe interactions.

They also intend to add Interactions Reviews, which will provide current reviews written about important plant–microbe interactions. According to Friesen, "Both review categories will bring visibility to MPMI and will be highly useful to young researchers, as well as scientists interested in gaining insight into new areas of research."

Lastly, they will implement Commentaries on selected articles published in MPMI, highlighting exceptional work.

Friesen is thrilled to utilize his passion for, and knowledge of, scientific publications as editor-in-chief of MPMI. "A scientist's goal is always the publication of their work, and with each publication, filling a gap in scientific understanding. Regardless of whether this is a small or large piece of the scientific puzzle, it is always satisfying to put a complete story together and polish it for publication," Friesen said. He looks forward to overseeing this process and working with his editorial board to provide the best possible author and reviewer experience.​

Learn More About Timothy Friesen

Dr. Friesen received his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from North Dakota State University in 2001 and then joined the USDA-ARS later that year as an ARS post-doc working in the Sugar Beet and Potato Research Unit in Fargo, ND. In 2002, he accepted a research plant pathologist position in the Cereal Crops Research Unit, Red River Valley Agricultural Research Center in Fargo, ND. Dr. Friesen's research program focuses on the genetics and molecular biology of virulence associated with foliar pathogens of wheat and barley, concentrating on how pathogens interact with their respective host plants. Examples of research highlights include the cloning and validation of pathogen-produced effector genes involved in host–pathogen interactions and the functional characterization of how necrotrophic pathogens use necrotrophic effectors in virulence.

IS-MPMI and MPMI sincerely thank Jeanne Harris for her enthusiastic dedication to and leadership of MPMI. During her term, Harris guided the publicat​ion of highly successful articles and focus issues. She also oversaw pivotal changes to the journal, including


Harris plans to stay involved with MPMI as coordinator and host of What's New in MPMI! Virtual Seminars.​

Dec 21
Celebrate a Great Year of MPMI Science: Most Cited and Most Read Articles Published in 2022

Most Cited

EffectorP 3.0: Prediction of Apoplastic and Cytoplasmic Effectors in Fungi and Oomycetes
Jana Sperschneider and Peter N. Dodds

Identification of Adhesins in Plant Beneficial Rhizobacteria Bacillus velezensis SQR9 and Their Effect on Root Colonization
Rong Huang, Haichao Feng, Zhihui Xu, Nan Zhang, Yunpeng Liu et al.

OsRAM2 Function in Lipid Biosynthesis Is Required for Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis in Rice
Ying-Na Liu, Cheng-Chen Liu, An-Qi Zhu, Ke-Xin Niu, Rui Guo et al.

The Mechanosensitive Ion Channel MSL10 Modulates Susceptibility to Pseudomonas syringae in Arabidopsis thaliana
Debarati Basu, Jennette M. Codjoe, Kira M. Veley, and Elizabeth S. Haswell​

Most Read

Recognition of Microbe- and Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns by Leucine-Rich Repeat Pattern Recognition Receptor Kinases Confers Salt Tolerance in Plants
Eliza P.-I. Loo, Yuri Tajima, Kohji Yamada, Shota Kido, Taishi Hirase et al.

EffectorP 3.0: Prediction of Apoplastic and Cytoplasmic Effectors in Fungi and Oomycetes
Jana Sperschneider and Peter N. Dodds

Cell-to-Cell Communication During Plant–Pathogen Interaction
Naheed Tabassum and Ikram Blilou

Plant–Microbiota Interactions in Abiotic Stress Environments
Natsuki Omae and Kenichi Tsuda

Growth Promotion of Giant Duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza (Lemnaceae) by Ensifer sp. SP4 Through Enhancement of Nitrogen Metabolism and Photosynthesis
Tadashi Toyama, Kazuhiro Mori, Yasuhiro Tanaka, Michihiko Ike, and Masaaki Morikawa

Influence of Flagellin Polymorphisms, Gene Regulation, and Responsive Memory on the Motility of Xanthomonas Species That Cause Bacterial Spot Disease of Solanaceous Plants
Maria L. Malvino, Amie J. Bott, Cory E. Green, Tanvi Majumdar, and Sarah R. Hind

Production of Agrocinopine A by Ipomoea batatas Agrocinopine Synthase in Transgenic Tobacco and Its Effect on the Rhizosphere Microbial Community
Aiko Tanaka, Maarten H. Ryder, Takamasa Suzuki, Kazuma Uesaka, Nobuo Yamaguchi et al.

Microscopic and Transcriptomic Analyses of Dalbergoid Legume Peanut Reveal a Divergent Evolution Leading to Nod-Factor-Dependent Epidermal Crack-Entry and Terminal Bacteroid Differentiation
Bikash Raul, Oindrila Bhattacharjee, Amit Ghosh, Priya Upadhyay, Kunal Tembhare et al.

RNAi-Based Gene Silencing of RXLR Effectors Protects Plants Against the Oomycete Pathogen Phytophthora capsici
Wei Cheng, Menglan Lin, Moli Chu, Guixiang Xiang, Jianwen Guo et al.

Involvement of Arabidopsis Acyl Carrier Protein 1 in PAMP-Triggered Immunity
Zhenzhen Zhao, Jiangbo Fan, Piao Yang, Zonghua Wang, Stephen Obol Opiyo et al.​

Dec 21
Kick Off 2023 with the Next What's New in MPMI! Virtual Seminar


Register to hear Emma Gachomo present the Editor's Pick "Bradyrhizobium japonicum IRAT FA3 Alters Arabidopsis thaliana Root Architecture via Regulation of Auxin Efflux Transporters PIN2, PIN3, PIN7, and ABCB19" on January 17, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. CST.​

Watch Recent What's New in MPMI! Virtual Seminars

Kyungyong Seong presented the award-winning Editor's Pick "Computational Structural Genomics Unravels Common Folds and Novel Families in the Secretome of Fungal Phytopathogen Magnaporthe oryzae" on November 15, 2022.

Yusuke Saijo presented "Recognition of Microbe- and Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns by Leucine-Rich Repeat Pattern Recognition Receptor Kinases Confers Salt Tolerance in Plants," the Editor's Pick from a special focus issue, on October 11, 2022.​

Dec 21
Don't Miss the MPMI Editor's Picks from This Fall

September​

Protease Inhibitors from Solanum chacoense Inhibit Pectobacterium Virulence by Reducing Bacterial Protease Activity and Motility

Janak Joshi and colleagues identify protease inhibitors from wild potato that inhibit disease caused by bacterial Pectobacterium pathogens. These protease inhibitors can be used in potato breeding programs and may potentially have a much more immediate effect as purified proteins that can be used to manage Pectobacterium-caused disease.

October​​

Transcriptomic Identification of a Unique Set of Nodule-Specific Cysteine-Rich Peptides Expressed in the Nitrogen-Fixing Root Nodule of Astragalus sinicus

Nodule-specific cysteine-rich (NCR) peptides are targeted to the symbiosomes to regulate bacteroid differentiation. Feng Wei and colleagues identified NCR peptides from Astragalus sinicus and showed that AsNCRs expression depends on a rhizobial peptide transporter encoded by the BacA gene. Further, they established that AsNCR067 promotes rhizobial growth, whereas AsNCR083 expression in rhizobia disrupts late nodule development and bacteroid differentiation. This research highlights that NCR peptides are plant-encoded checkpoints for rhizobial differentiation in nodules and can be used as a tool to modify legume-rhizobia symbiosis.​

NovemberInteractions figure.jpg

A Promiscuity Locus Confers Lotus burttii Nodulation with Rhizobia from Five Different Genera

Why do some legumes interact only with one or two specialist rhizobia symbionts while others interact with many? Mohammad Zarrabian and colleagues identify a locus in Lotus burtii that determines its ability to interact with many different rhizobia strains. This study provides an opportunity to understand how host range and its restriction is controlled at a molecular level.​

Sep 21
IS-MPMI Interactions – Issue 3, 2022
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Issue 3 • 2022
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It is with great pleasure that I send you my first update as IS-MPMI president. My heartfelt thanks to Mary Beth Mudgett (IS-MPMI immediate past president), who helped IS-MPMI overcome enormous challenges during the pandemic; MPMI Editor-in-Chief Jeanne Harris, who has overseen the transformation of MPMI into a Gold Open Access journal; and our entire board for their service. Welcome as well to our two new junior members, Priya Sengupta and Goodluck Benjamin. I look forward to serving IS-MPMI and seeing you in person at 2023 IS-MPMI XIX in Rhode Island next July!
 
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Also in this issue...
To recognize the work of early-career scientists, the MPMI Editorial Board has implemented a new award series to honor the best papers published by student first authors. For 2021, Kyungyong Seong received the first place award for "Computational Structural Genomics Unravels Common Folds and Novel Families in the Secretome of Fungal Phytopathogen Magnaporthe oryzae." Zi-Hui Huang and Takemasa Kawaguchi received the second and third place awards, respectively.
 
IS-MPMI members Dr. Greg Martin and Dr. Blake Meyers have earned membership in the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Haesong Kim recently conducted an interview with Dr. Martin asking several questions about his research on the molecular basis of bacterial pathogenesis and the plant immune system, his mentors and inspiration, and his advice for early-career researchers.
 
Dr. Gitta Coaker has received the 2022 Noel T. Keen Award from The American Phytopathological Society for research excellence in molecular plant pathology. Her research group studies a variety of plant–pathogen interactions, with central research questions focusing on plant immune signaling and pathogen effector biology.
 
InterStellar: Interview with 2022 APS Ruth Allen Award Recipient Dr. Kiran Mysore
Dr. Kiran Mysore has received the 2022 Ruth Allen Award from The American Phytopathological Society. The award honors individuals who have made an outstanding, innovative research contribution that has changed, or has the potential to change, the direction of research in any field of plant pathology.
 
Dr. Steve Whitham has been named a 2022 Fellow of The American Phytopathological Society. This honor recognizes distinguished contributions to plant pathology in one or more of the following areas: original research, teaching, administration, professional and public service, and extension and outreach.
 
Dr. Xinnian Dong has received the 2022 Stephen Hales Prize from the American Society of Plant Biologists. It is a monetary award honoring the Reverend Stephen Hales for his pioneering work in plant biology and is given to an ASPB member who has served the science of plant biology in a noteworthy manner.
 
Earlier this year, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced the selection of 25 exceptional early-career scientists as 2022 Hanna Gray Fellows. This year's cohort of Fellows includes plant–microbe trainee Dr. Shanice Webster.
 
In 2020, Dr. Giles Oldroyd was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Leading up to the induction ceremony this summer, Dr. Oldroyd posted a Royal Society blog reflecting on his life experience as an openly queer person.
 
Aphanomyces root rot of sugar beet, caused by Aphanomyces cochlioides, occurs in all major growing regions. In their recently published paper, Botkin et al. generated a de novo genome assembly for A. cochlioides using both long- and short-read technologies, resulting in a more contiguous assembly than for other Aphanomyces spp. genomes. This resource will enable investigations into virulence mechanisms, evolutionary relationships, genetic diversity, and the development of specific detection assays.
 
Dominique Holtappels, Siva Sankari, Amelia Lovelace, Manish Tiwari, and Tiffany (Tiff) Mak have joined the MPMI Editorial Board as assistant feature editors. These creative individuals have two-year appointments to explore new ways to present and amplify journal articles.
 
To include the viewpoints of members-in-training in society decision making and congress planning, the IS-MPMI Board of Directors has added two new junior members. We are pleased to welcome Priya Sengupta and Goodluck Benjamin to the board!
 
MPMI proudly presents a special focus issue addressing the #2 top unanswered research question identified by the MPMI scientific community: How do aspects of the abiotic environment affect plant–microbe interactions, and conversely, how do plant–microbe interactions affect host response to abiotic stress?
 
Explore the Editor's picks from the June, July, and August issues of MPMI.
 
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We are always looking for content for Interactions. Please contact Interactions Editor-in-Chief Dennis Halterman with questions or article ideas.

Sep 20
Letter from IS-MPMI President Roger Innes

D​ear IS-MPMI Member (past, present and future!),

It is with great pleasure that I send you my first update as IS-MPMI president. I want to start by giving my heartfelt thanks to Mary Beth Mudgett, who served as president from July 2019 through June 2022, a three-year period that presented enormous challenges to IS-MPMI, with the canceling (twice!) of our 2021 in-person congress in JeJu, Korea, and a rapid pivot to a series of virtual meetings that helped support us as a community of researchers during the pandemic. This pivot would not have been possible without the vision and hard work of Mary Beth. I would also like to thank Jeanne Harris, editor-in-chief of our society journal MPMI and IS-MPMI Board member. Thanks to Jeanne's determination and vision, MPMI has undergone a transformation under her tenure, becoming a Gold Open Access journal with outstanding visibility among the MPMI community. The series of free webinars featuring MPMI authors launched by Jeanne has been extremely successful, highlighting exciting research and promoting the careers of our authors.

IS-MPMI is run by a Board of Directors, which elects its own officers (president, treasurer, and secretary), with officers usually changing every two years, coinciding with our biannual in-person congress. Due to the cancellation of the 2021 congress, Mary Beth stayed on an extra year, focusing on our virtual symposia, including the recent Early Career Showcase. Mary Beth, thus, led the organizational efforts for multiple virtual meetings, representing a huge effort. Thank you, Mary Beth, for all that you have done for the IS-MPMI community! I also thank our entire board for their service, especially our junior board members, Patricia Baldrich (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center) and Charles Roussin-Leveille (Universite de Sherbrooke), who have brought lots of energy and new ideas to the board over the last three years. Indeed, the addition of junior members to the board has worked so well, we recently added two new junior board members, Priya Sengupta (University of Cologne) and Goodluck Benjamin (INRAE/Université Côte d'Azur). Both have been very active in science outreach, and we look forward to their contributions going forward.

The primary activity of IS-MPMI is planning for our biannual in-person congress. We are now in the thick of planning for 2023 IS-MPMI XIX, which will be held in Providence, RI, USA, July 16–20. Please mark your calendars for our first in-person meeting since Glasgow in 2019. We will be announcing our keynote and plenary speakers for this meeting in late September with the launch of the congress website.

New for the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress, we will be inviting proposals from the entire IS-MPMI community for concurrent sessions. By engaging all of you in our meeting planning process, we expect to generate a diverse and exciting lineup of concurrent sessions. We will also be encouraging new formats for these sessions, moving beyond a lineup of short PowerPoint presentations to formats that encourage active participation by attendees. We are really looking forward to seeing the proposals generated by you, the IS-MPMI community. Be on the look-out for the call for proposals in September.

This change aligns with IS-MPMI's participation in the NSF-funded ROOT&SHOOT research coordination network (RCN), which includes six other plant-focused scientific societies. Together, our goal is Rooting Out Oppression Together and SHaring Our Outcomes Transparently. As part of this effort, we will be examining all aspects of our congresses to make them more inclusive and welcoming to all.

Although the bi-annual meeting is a focus of our activities, membership in IS-MPMI provides many benefits beyond a discount to our meetings and publishing in MPMI, including access to our online community, IS-MPMIConnect, and our newsletter, IS-MPMI Interactions. If you have not already checked them out, please do so. If you are not already a member, or if your membership has lapsed, you can join/renew here.

Thank you for reading this long update. I look forward to serving IS-MPMI in the coming year and keeping you updated on IS-MPMI 2023. And, I especially look forward to seeing most of you in person in Rhode Island next July!

Sincerely,

Roger Innes, IS-MPMI President
Distinguished Professor of Biology
Indiana University Bloomington​

Sep 20
MPMI Editorial Board Awards Best Student Papers for 2021

To recognize the work o​f early-career scientists, the MPMI Editorial Board has implemented a new award series to honor the best papers published by student first authors. For 2021, the first place award goes to Kyungyong Seong for his paper "Computational Structural Genomics Unravels Common Folds and Novel Families in the Secretome of Fungal Phytopathogen Magnaporthe oryzae." Jeanne Harris, MPMI editor-in-chief writes, "The approach using structure modeling to identify effector families by their folded shape, rather than amino acid sequence, opens up a world of possibilities, not only in identifying new effectors, but also in understanding the evolution of effector families and functions, and, in the future, as a tool in immune receptor engineering. In addition, the paper was clearly and logically written, with implications and future uses of this approach clearly visualized and explained." Kyungyong will present his work in the What's New in MPMI Virtual Seminar Series in November. You can also learn more about Kyungyong and his work below.

The second place award for the top graduate student-authored MPMI paper goes to Zi-Hui Huang for the paper "A Small Cysteine-Rich Phytotoxic Protein of Phytophthora capsici Functions as Both Plant Defense Elicitor and Virulence Factor."

The third place award goes to Takemasa Kawaguchi for the paper "AKSF1 Isolated from the Rice-Virulent Strain Acidovorax avenae K1 Is a Novel Effector That Suppresses PAMP-Triggered Immunity in Rice."​

Name: Kyungyong Seong

Current Position: A third-year graduate student in the Ksenia Krasileva Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.

Education: B.S. degree in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Brief Bio: I started my study in plant immunity as an undergraduate student in Dr. Brian Staskawicz's lab at the University of California, Berkeley. My first project involved analyzing intracellular immune receptors (NLRs) across wild tomato species collected from South America. I was soon absorbed in exploring the complexity of plant genomes and decoding the history of plant survival against pathogens. After finishing my B.S. degree, I continued my research for the next three years in Dr. Staskawicz's lab in the Innovative Genomics Institute. I was influenced every day by great scientists with passion and diligence in their work and by the MPMI community striving to improve plant health. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to join the community as a genomics scientist to make contributions to plant pathology.

I started my Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley with my current supervisor, Dr. Ksenia Krasileva. We share the same viewpoint that interdisciplinary novel techniques could help elucidate diverse aspects of the plant–pathogen interaction. In our first lab meeting, I presented three ambitious goals I wanted to pursue in alignment with this vision: 1) elucidating effector evolution based on predicted structures; 2) engineering NLRs for novel recognition specificity against any effector targets; and 3) computationally predicting the interaction between effectors and their host targets. The computational structural genomics on the blast pathogen published in MPMI, together with the recently preprinted comparative study, completes the first chapter of my Ph.D. journey. I am happy to share the work with the community and am already excited for the new challenges I will soon encounter in protein design.

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