Brian Staskawicz

Last updated
Brian Staskawicz

Born
Brian John Staskawicz
Alma mater
Awards Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1998) [1]
Scientific career
Institutions University of California, Berkeley
Thesis Genetics and biochemistry of toxigenicity in Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola : production, transport, and immunity to phaseolotoxin  (1980)
Website plantandmicrobiology.berkeley.edu/profile/staskawicz

Brian John Staskawicz ForMemRS [1] is professor of plant and microbial miology at the University of California, Berkeley [2] [3] and scientific director of agricultural genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI).

Contents

Education

Staskawicz was educated at Bates College (BA, 1974), Yale University (MS, 1976) and the University of California, Berkeley where he completed a PhD in plant pathology in 1980. [4]

Research and career

Staskawicz has made many seminal contributions to the understanding of infection strategies of plant pathogens and immune response of plants. [5] [6] [7] These include the cloning of the first pathogen effector gene and the cloning and characterisation of one of the first plant NOD-like receptors. [1]

Staskawicz and his colleagues also played a major role in establishing Arabidopsis thaliana as a model organism to study the molecular basis of microbial recognition by plants and genetically dissect defense signaling pathways. [1] More recently[ when? ], he is leading an effort at the IGI in the genome editing of agriculture crops for biotic and abiotic stress resistance and improved plant performance. [1] Work in his laboratory has identified and characterised bacterial effector proteins from both Pseudomonas syringae and Xanthomonas spp.

Awards and honours

Staskawicz was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2019. [1] He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the US and has been elected a Fellow of both the American Phytopathological Society and the American Academy of Microbiology. [1]

Related Research Articles

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The gene-for-gene relationship is a concept in plant pathology that plants and their diseases each have single genes that interact with each other during an infection. It was proposed by Harold Henry Flor who was working with rust (Melampsora lini) of flax (Linum usitatissimum). Flor showed that the inheritance of both resistance in the host and parasite ability to cause disease is controlled by pairs of matching genes. One is a plant gene called the resistance (R) gene. The other is a parasite gene called the avirulence (Avr) gene. Plants producing a specific R gene product are resistant towards a pathogen that produces the corresponding Avr gene product. Gene-for-gene relationships are a widespread and very important aspect of plant disease resistance. Another example can be seen with Lactuca serriola versus Bremia lactucae.

<i>Pseudomonas syringae</i> Species of bacterium

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Anon (2019). "Professor Brian Staskawicz ForMemRS". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2019-04-24. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)
  2. Brian Staskawicz publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  3. Brian Staskawicz publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  4. Staskawicz, Brian John (1980). Genetics and biochemistry of toxigenicity in Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola : production, transport, and immunity to phaseolotoxin. berkeley.edu (PhD thesis). University of California, Berkeley. OCLC   79867607.
  5. Chisholm, Stephen T.; Coaker, Gitta; Day, Brad; Staskawicz, Brian J. (2006). "Host-Microbe Interactions: Shaping the Evolution of the Plant Immune Response". Cell. 124 (4): 803–814. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2006.02.008 . ISSN   0092-8674. PMID   16497589. S2CID   10696351.
  6. Baker, B. (1997). "Signaling in Plant-Microbe Interactions". Science. 276 (5313): 726–733. doi:10.1126/science.276.5313.726. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   9115193. Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  7. Staskawicz, B.; Ausubel, F.; Baker, B.; Ellis, J.; Jones, J. (1995). "Molecular genetics of plant disease resistance". Science. 268 (5211): 661–667. Bibcode:1995Sci...268..661S. doi:10.1126/science.7732374. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   7732374. S2CID   6154978. Closed Access logo transparent.svg