Plant pathology

Barry M. Pryor, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in the School of Plant Sciences. Dr. Pryor is internationally renowned for his work studying fungi in the genus Alternaria, and this research includes study in Alternaria ecology, biology, systematics, mycotoxicology, and the role of Alternaria in childhood-onset asthma. Additional research programs include disease management in agricultural and horticultural crops, characterization of fungal communities in native ecosystems, and cultivation of edible mushrooms and their co-utility in landscape and consumer waster recycling.Dr. Pryor has published over 50 original research and review papers, many in collaboration with investigators from around the world. He has served as Senior Editor for Phytopathology and Plant Disease, which are both premier journals for plant pathology research. He is a frequent presenter at national and international meetings, and is an active member in several plant pathology and mycological societies.

Marc Orbach, PhD, uses Magnaporthe grisea, the fungal pathogen responsible for the rice blast disease, as a model system to study host-pathogen interactions at the molecular and biochemical level. This pathogen, like many other plant pathogens, interacts with its host in a gene-for-gene manner, where host resistance is induced when the plant contains a resistance gene and the pathogen, a corresponding avirulence gene. The main focus of his research program is to understand what the signals between the pathogen and its host are, that dictate whether the host is able to mount a resistance response. Genetic analysis of M. grisea have identified several avirulence genes that determine what their products are and how these products interact with host plants to induce host defenses. He is also interested in questions of genome stability and the generation of genetic variability in fungi. These questions are of significance in M. grisea because of the apparent ability of this pathogen to rapidly overcome host resistance in the field. Dr. Orbach spends time addressing these questions by studying genome variation in M. grisea at the whole genome level using electrophoretic karyotyping methods. He wishes to specifically analyze the role that a transposable element may play in genome variation and the high rate of mutation observed at some loci.

Judith Brown, PhD, and her research interests include the molecular epidemiology of whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses (Begomoviruses, Family: Geminiviridae), the basis for virus-vector specificity and the transmission pathway, and the biotic and genetic variation between populations of the whitefly vector, B. tabaci, that influence the molecular epidemiology and evolution of begomoviruses. Keywords: Plant viral genomics, emergent virus phylodynamics, functional genomics of insect-pathogen interactions