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Cynthia Ebube Abonyi
Lukman Aderemi Abdulroheem
Kareem Subomi Adesope
Aramide Rodiat Aremu
Gokulan CG
Soumya Moonjely
Researchers have uncovered novel immune mechanisms in Aegilops cylindrica that could revolutionize strategies for developing disease-resistant wheat.
A new study published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI) has identified A. cylindrica, a wild grass closely related to wheat, as a powerful genetic reservoir for resistance against the devastating fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici—the cause of Septoria tritici blotch (STB). These findings open the door to breeding more resilient wheat varieties and reducing the global dependence on chemical fungicides.
The research team—led by Eva Stukenbrock from the Botanical Institute in Kiel, Germany, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany—discovered that A. cylindrica possesses unique defense mechanisms not found in cultivated wheat. By combining genetic and microscopic analyses, researchers revealed that resistance to Z. tritici in this wild species is established at an early stage of infection—right at the leaf’s stomatal openings, where the fungus would normally gain entry. Moreover, transcriptome profiling exposed how virulent fungal isolates suppress key immune-related genes in A. cylindrica, whereas A. cylindrica maintains its expression when infected with avirulent and wheat-specialized isolates to block infection.
“What excites us most,” Stukenbrock noted, “is that Aegilops cylindrica provides entirely new insights into plant immunity against Zymoseptoria tritici that were previously unknown in wheat. This discovery offers breeders new targets for enhancing resistance and developing more sustainable control strategies.”
This is the first study to generate a transcriptome assembly for A. cylindrica, a species with a simpler genome yet strong parallels to wheat’s pathogen interactions. The findings not only highlight novel candidate resistance genes, but also shed light on how Z. tritici overcomes plant defenses by suppressing key immune responses—a process Stukenbrock refers to as “molecular sabotage.”
Beyond its implications for wheat improvement, this work advances our understanding across plant pathology, genetics, and sustainable agriculture. It underscores the value of conserving wild plant relatives as sources of hidden traits that can help secure global food supplies. “This research expands our view of plant–pathogen interactions and provides a roadmap for developing wheat varieties capable of resisting one of the world’s most damaging cereal diseases,” the team explained.
For additional details, read “Comparative Transcriptomic and Microscopic Analyses of a Wild Wheat Relative Reveal Novel Mechanisms of Immune Suppression by the Pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici,” by Rune Hansen, Wagner C. Fagundes, and Eva H. Stukenbrock. Published open access in MPMI.
Translocation of Effector Proteins into Plant Cells by the Flax Rust Pathogen Melampsora lini, by Xiaoxiao Zhang et al.
Read the Commentary by Assistant Feature Editors Ruby Tiwari and Jawahar Singh to learn more.
A Salivary Effector of the Pea Aphid Interacts with Pea Proteins and Enhances Its Performance on the Host Plant, by Po-Yuan Shih et al.
Read the Commentary by Assistant Feature Editors Ved Prakash and Meenu Singla-Rastogi to learn more.
Connect and collaborate with other members in our new IS-MPMI Member Online Community on LinkedIn. Join today.
Follow IS-MPMI and MPMI on Bluesky at @ismpmi.bsky.social to keep up on IS-MPMI events and news, and stay up to date on the latest research with @mpmijournal.bsky.social.
Cynthia Ebube Abonyi
Lukman Aderemi Abdulroheem
Kareem Subomi Adesope
Aramide Rodiat Aremu
Gokulan CG
Soumya Moonjely
Dr. Jones was interviewed by Jawahar Singh, MPMI Assistant Features Editor
Jonathan Jones, senior group leader at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, Norfolk, England, is one of the most influential figures in molecular plant–microbe interactions. Over nearly four
decades, his work has shaped our understanding of plant immunity, from cloning the Cf-9 resistance gene to coauthoring the guard hypothesis and zig-zag model. This year, he shared the Wolf Foundation Prize in Agriculture with long-time collaborators Jeff Dangl and Brian Staskawicz—a recognition of the profound impact plant disease resistance research has had on agriculture.
I spoke with JJ about his reaction to receiving the award, the mentors and moments that shaped his career, his most influential work, and his advice for the next generation.
The call came in over a weekend, but my phone’s usually on silent, so I missed it. Then I got emails from Brian and Jeff. Brian said, “If that’s the Wolf Foundation calling, they’re probably not ringing to tell us we haven’t won.” He was right.
I was elated, especially because I’ve worked with Jeff and Brian for nearly my whole career. The award recognizes not just us, but the importance of plant disease resistance in agriculture. It’s an affirmation that what we’ve been doing matters.
My first love was chemistry—I was fascinated by the periodic table as a teenager. In the late 1960s, however, it was clear humans weren’t treating the planet well, so at university I switched to biology to “save the world” from ecological disaster.
Ecology turned out to require patience and statistics, which I wasn’t great at, so I found my home in plant science. Plants are incredible—they turn sunlight and CO2 into the sugars that sustain all life. That led me to a Ph.D. degree at the Plant Breeding Institute, where I saw the intersection of genetics and crop improvement.
A postdoc with Fred Ausubel in the early 1980s got me into symbiotic nitrogen fixation. I was one of the first to move nodulation genes into Agrobacterium to make pseudo-nodules. Later, at a biotech startup in California, I fell in love with designing genetic constructs—it’s like sculpture, shaping something into a functional form.
In 1988, Caroline Dean and I moved to Norwich, where I used transposons to clone Cf-9, one of the first resistance genes. From there, my focus shifted to figuring out how these genes actually work—a much tougher problem.
Plenty. Harold Whitehouse taught genetics with rigor. Tom ap Rees brought biochemical precision. My Ph.D. advisors, Dick Flavell and Gabriel Dover, gave me both scientific wisdom and rhetorical skills.
In Fred Ausubel’s lab I was surrounded by brilliance—George Church, Venkatesan Sundaresan, Sharon Long, and Gary Ruvkun. Later, colleagues like Brian Staskawicz, Jeff Dangl, David Baulcombe, and Jane Parker shaped my thinking. Recruiting great people has always been key.
That’s for others to decide, but the Cf-9 cloning stands out—we had so many different transposon insertions; it was beautiful genetics. The guard hypothesis and zig-zag model have had lasting conceptual impacts.
I’m also proud of the “mutual potentiation” paper, where we figured out how to study ETI without PTI—something nobody had really done before. And, on the applied side, cloning and stacking late blight resistance genes in potato to make field-ready products has been hugely rewarding, even if it’s a long road to deployment.
The Purple TomatoTM company. Cathy Martin and I started it 18 years ago, partly to see if pairing a consumer-friendly trait with agronomic traits could help with public acceptance of GM crops. The original vision was more ambitious, but now there’s a product in the United States with real health benefits—at least if you’re a mouse!
It says the work my colleagues, collaborators, and I have done over the last 37 years matters and could make a real difference. Recognition is nice, but if you let it drive your research, you risk distorting what you do. Curiosity has to be the real driver.
To set a good example—behave generously, not selfishly, and encourage others to see science as an exciting way to make a living—and avoid doing anything I’d regret when I wake up the next morning.
Early on, the challenge was literally getting genes out of genomes before sequencing made it easy. Later, it was working out how resistance genes function—an area where I rely on recruiting great people.
The most painful episode was retracting a paper after discovering data fabrication. The lesson? Always insist on independent replication—three times, minimum—for every figure in a paper.
Follow something you’re genuinely curious about. Read enough to know what’s not known. Frame good questions, design experiments to answer them, and, as Barbara McClintock said, “Treasure your exceptions”—unexpected results are often where discoveries hide.
Genome sequencing shows that plant genomes are full of insertions, deletions, inversions—massive natural variation. Against that backdrop, worrying about adding one or two genes via Agrobacterium or editing 20 nucleotides is absurd. We should all be out there explaining this to anyone who will listen.
Lots. Immune receptor design, understanding how calcium signals actually trigger defense, resistance to nonbiotrophic pathogens, plant–invertebrate interactions, understanding how virus resistance NLRs stop viruses, and something I call the “fourth dimension”—studying processes over time, not just endpoints.
I hope they see the opportunity to make agriculture more sustainable by improving crop disease resistance—saving not just grain, but the enormous amounts of water and inputs lost to disease. And, I hope they keep digging in fields where there are still new potatoes to be found.
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Wolf Prize in Agriculture! Jeff Dangl, the John N. Couch Distinguished Professor of Biology in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Jonathan D. G. Jones, senior group leader at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, Norfolk, England; and Brian J. Staskawicz, the Maxine J. Elliot Professor and chair of the Plant and Microbial Biology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. In this issue of Interactions, MPMI Assistant Features Editor Jawahar Singh talks with Jonathan Jones about his career path in “Dig Where the Potatoes Are: A Conversation with Jonathan Jones on Curiosity, Recognition, and the Future of Molecular Plant–Microbe Interactions.” Future issues will include interviews with Dr. Dangl and Dr. Staskawicz.
Jawahar Singh and Meenu Singla-Rastogi, MPMI Assistant Features Editors
When we think about science, we often picture experiments, data, and breakthroughs. However, behind every discovery lies another essential ingredient: mentorship. Mentorship is a critical, although typically under-emphasized, part of the scientific journey. In the rapidly developing and cross-disciplinary world of molecular plant–microbe interactions, successful mentoring not only determines the way in which discoveries are made, but also shapes careers, determines whether promising young scientists stay in the field, and builds the kind of supportive community that science needs to thrive. At the 2025 IS-MPMI Congress in Cologne, Germany, we, with the support of highly enthusiastic early-career researchers (ECRs), hosted a satellite meeting on Building Careers in MPMI Through Effective Mentoring as an open forum for ECRs and senior scientists to exchange perspectives on mentorship practices. Unlike a traditional lecture, this workshop was designed as an open space for ECRs and senior scientists to come together, share experiences, and talk honestly about what mentorship looks like in practice. The session attracted participants with diverse backgrounds from academia, industry, and international institutions.
In this article, we summarize key highlights from the discussion, identify typical challenges, and provide actionable resources for the molecular plant–microbe interactions community. The discussions made it clear that mentorship is more than just advice or supervision. Done well, it builds confidence, accelerates professional development, and helps researchers feel a sense of belonging. Done poorly, or not at all, it can lead to frustration, lost opportunities, and talented people leaving science altogether. For many ECRs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, access to good mentorship can make the difference between staying engaged or walking away. By incorporating mentorship as an important aspect of research culture, we can strengthen streams of career development and build a more diverse, resilient, and collaborative worldwide society.
In the following section, we present the themes and takeaways from these discussions and offer practical recommendations for sustaining mentorship support post-event. We hope that these takeaways will not only provide an account of the event, but also a living document that can be added to as the community’s needs evolve.
Participants emphasized that the relationship between mentor and mentee is founded on respect and clarity. Well-defined expectations set early—project goals, writing strategies, and communication approaches—help avoid conflict down the road. Some of the mentors spoke about the utilization of mentorship agreements or lab charters, detailing responsibilities and rights for both parties. The two-way nature of mentorship also was emphasized. Mentees look for guidance, while mentors also receive new ideas, new technical skills, and greater cultural awareness. Open avenues for feedback, such as regular check-ins or anonymous questionnaires, provide an opportunity for both sides to be heard. Partnerships with researchers in molecular plant–microbe interactions from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds are not uncommon within countries. Spanning differences, such as hierarchical mindsets, gender roles, or conflict resolution, takes finesse. Speaking freely about these challenges in Cologne reminded most ECRs that such challenges are the norm, not their personal shortcoming.
Authorship remains one of the most contested topics in research. ECRs are frequently confused or frustrated regarding the order, criteria, or recognition of contribution. Mentors stressed the importance of early, honest communication about authorship. Tools such as the CRediT taxonomy (contributor roles taxonomy) were proposed to aid in defining contributions other than writing and experiments (i.e., supervision, conceptualization, or data curation). Power imbalances may complicate these discussions. Junior researchers may be hesitant to voice concerns if they fear they will be victimized. Solutions put forward included developing department- or society-wide authorship policies, training to prepare mentors for initiating authorship discussions and initiating them proactively, and making written commitments to reduce misunderstandings. Authorship conflicts erode trust within groups; therefore, proactive steps or interventions are essential to prevent conflicts.
Dealing with the conflicting demands of experiments, publications, networking, and personal responsibilities is an issue common to many. Some of the ECRs expressed worry about being overcommitted and pressure to deliver on multiple fronts. Techniques such as sorting projects based on urgent versus important matrices that cause ECRs to say no to commitments not aligned with career goals and breaking down long-term projects into milestones with realistic short-term deliverables, were discussed by the mentors. Participants also discussed the importance of the mentor modeling healthy work-life boundaries. When older scientists honor weekends, holidays, and parental leave, this sends a message to protégés that these boundaries are okay. This role modeling is critical in the cutthroat and frenetic business of molecular plant–microbe interactions.
Transitioning from being supervised to being an independent scientist is an important but not always transparent step. Mentees expressed a desire for structured opportunities for exercising leadership skills, such as overseeing undergraduates, leading small grant proposals, or delivering presentations at lab meetings. Mentors emphasized the necessity of gradually moving mentees from dependent to collaborative roles. A postdoc, for example, can coauthor a paper with their PI and gain leadership experience in authorship while still being supervised. Grant writing, lab management, and mentoring others were recognized as an area where organizations such as IS-MPMI can provide workshops or resources. These are competencies frequently omitted from formal graduate school or postdoctoral training, but that are crucial for long-term career success.
Science is not performed in a vacuum; scientists bring along their personal lives, identities, and responsibilities. Members discussed the specific challenges faced by caregivers, those in underfunded institutions, and those facing system-level prejudices. Some of the most obvious recommendations were making conversations regarding mental health part of the laboratory environment, providing flexible work schedules when feasible, providing conference travel support for parents of small children, and actively encouraging women and underrepresented groups to seek leadership positions within molecular plant–microbe interactions. By developing inclusive mentorship, not only are we able to retain talent, but the pool of diverse ideas that drive innovation is maximized as well.
The Cologne satellite meeting was a landmark for the acknowledgment of mentorship as one of the main pillars of the molecular plant–microbe interactions community. By summarizing lessons learned and proposing concrete resources, we aim to catalyze a culture in which mentorship is valued on par with grants and publications. We urge IS-MPMI and its members to encourage mentorship activities so that all ECRs get the guidance, support, and recognition they need to thrive. Well-practiced mentorship is not an add-on activity but a way of developing scientific excellence and community sustainability.
We wish to formally acknowledge the invaluable guidance provided by Tim Friesen (EIC MPMI), Tessa Birch-Smith (associate EIC MPMI), and Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi (EIC Interactions) during the planning and execution of the satellite meeting. We also are grateful to our sponsors—Terrana Biosciences, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Corteva Agrisciences, and the Root and Shoot organization—for their generous support. In addition, we extend our appreciation to our co-MPMI Assistant Features Editors Ruby Tiwari and Ved Prakash, as well as to student volunteers Ashley Nelson, Alyssa Flobinus, and Andrea Zanini, whose contributions were instrumental in facilitating the organization and logistical arrangements of the event. Finally, we wish to express our sincere appreciation to our mentors for their time and commitment in serving as speakers, facilitating group discussions, and leading a highly successful mentoring session that provided an impactful start to the 2025 IS-MPMI Congress.
Professor Wilson was interviewed by Ruby Tiwari, MPMI Assistant Features Editor
Richard A. Wilson is the Charles Bessey Professor of Plant Pathology in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), where his lab focuses on understanding the genetics of plant–fungal interactions. His work seeks to unravel the mechanisms by which fungal pathogens invade host plants, suppress immune responses, and adapt to the nutrient landscape within plant cells—knowledge that may aid the development of durable disease-control strategies for global crops. His research program has been continuously supported by competitive funding, including multiple National Science Foundation (NSF)—Plant Biotic Interactions; NSF—Division of Integrative Organismal Systems; and U.S. Department of Agriculture–National Institute of Food and Agriculture awards, with major projects exploring effector secretion, biotrophic interfaces, nutrient adaptation, and mechanisms of plant immunity suppression.
Dr. Wilson’s contributions have been recognized through several honors, including election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2022), the High Impact Publication Award from the UNL Agricultural Research Division (2024), and the Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award (2025). He previously received the University of Exeter Merit Award for Excellence in Research.
A leader in scholarly publishing, Dr. Wilson is the incoming editor-in-chief (EIC) of Molecular Plant–Microbe Interactions (MPMI) (2026–2029). His editorial service also includes roles as associate EIC of MPMI (2025–2026), co-EIC of Fungal Genetics and Biology (2024–2026), academic editor for PLOS Pathogens, and member of the APS Publications Board and the IS-MPMI Board of Directors. Dr. Wilson’s career reflects a sustained commitment to advancing fundamental knowledge of plant–fungal biology, mentoring the next generation of scientists, and strengthening the global community of researchers in plant pathology and molecular plant–microbe interactions.
MPMI was the venue for my first technical paper, which covered the first part of my first postdoc with Nancy Keller, who was then at Texas A&M. Since then, I have published a total of six times in MPMI, which is the most for any journal in which I have published. I have been a reviewer for MPMI since at least 2009, when I started my faculty position at UNL–Lincoln. In 2013, I was brought in, on John McDowell‘s recommendation, as an associate editor on Jane Glazebrook‘s board, and then in 2015, I became a senior editor at the very end of Jane Glazebrook’s tenure as EIC because she needed to fill an expertise gap. I stayed on as a senior editor into John McDowell’s tenure as EIC, until he stepped down at the end of 2018. I came back as a senior editor under Tim Friesen, starting with him in 2023, before transitioning to associate EIC in the middle of 2025. My time spent in these various roles has been enormously valuable to my career in terms of getting both a deep and high-level view of the molecular plant–microbe interactions field and in preparing me for this next challenge as MPMI EIC. A real highlight for me at MPMI so far was acting as the senior editor who coordinated the focus issue Fine Grain: Molecular, Cellular and Genomic Details of Cereal Crop Diseases, which was published in 2025. I also am enjoying working with the academic features editors (AFEs) in my role as associate EIC, although that has only just begun. Regarding IS-MPMI, I and/or members of my lab have attended the congresses of course, but I think my biggest involvement is about to begin. MPMI is the journal of both APS and IS-MPMI, and as EIC I will sit on both the APS Publications Board and the IS-MPMI Board of Directors. Therefore, I hope to be a conduit for the two organizations, helping craft a journal of maximum benefit to both societies.
My Ph.D. degree was in molecular genetics from the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, which later became part of the Imperial College, working on nitrogen regulation in Aspergillus nidulans. Research themes in the Department focused on aspergillosis, septic shock, and HIV/AIDs, so it was a plant-free zone. However, as I started looking for postdoc positions, I discovered Nancy Keller’s work (previously at Texas A&M, now at the University of Wisconsin–Madison) who at that time was using A. nidulans to study sterigmatocystin biosynthesis as a proxy for understanding aflatoxin production in A. flavus and A. parasiticus. The nitrogen regulation I was interested in also controlled secondary metabolism in response to nutrient cues. I applied to her lab, but she had just hired someone to work on that aspect. Instead, I was offered a new project looking at how plant hosts (specifically corn seeds) responded to Aspergillus infection, which excited me because of the new skill set I would need to learn. I went on to show how host lipoxygenase gene expression corresponded to resistance or susceptibility to aflatoxigenic fungal infections. This became my first paper published in MPMI. After this, I went back to working with fungi in Nancy’s lab. Indeed, for a number of years, including my time in Nick Talbot‘s lab working with Magnaporthe oryzae, where I did a second postdoc, and in the early part of my own lab, I continued to focus on the metabolic control of fungal development. However, later, particularly after my lab learned from Barbara Valent how to do leaf-sheath infection assays for live-cell imaging and she had generously provided us with her pBV591 vector, which allows dual visualization of an apoplastic and cytoplasmic effector (Bas4 and Pwl2, respectively) in M. oryzae, I became more and more intrigued by the intracellular interface between host and microbe. This led us to test, using these fluorescent effector probes, how some of our physiological mutants were affected at this interface, finding, for example, that although comprising host-derived membranes, the integrity of the interface is dependent on fungal metabolic processes and membrane recycling. More recently, we have focused on how effectors are secreted into the host and on finding new Magnaporthe effectors. What continues to motivate me is wondering how the processes we observe during host infection are controlled and coordinated with fungal metabolism and development. We still have a lot to learn about the molecular underpinnings of fungal growth in host cells and how growth decisions integrate with host defense suppression. What are the tradeoffs, and how can they be exploited? It fascinates me to think about it, and one day, I hope we have a quantitative, systems-level model of all the processes involved in host colonization, from both plant host and pathogen, in order to identify novel pathogen weaknesses and bolster host strengths.
My key mentors have been Herb Arst, Jr., my Ph.D. supervisor, who showed me how detailed, elegant mechanistic studies are conceived and executed; Nancy Keller who taught me the value of focusing on papers and who honed my experimental design and thinking, and Nick Talbot, who gave me a lot of freedom to pursue key ideas and concepts, encouraging my independence and building my confidence to make the next leap to principle investigator (PI). A key turning point was switching from A. nidulans to working with M. oryzae in Nick Talbot’s lab. It set me on my current course because, by drawing on the experiences I had gained in the other system, I was able to formulate questions in Magnaporthe biology that were not being asked at that time: for example, how is fungal carbon and nitrogen metabolism integrated during host infection? Answering that particular question eventually uncovered fundamental principles of Magnaporthe biotrophic growth at the molecular level that we are still elaborating.
Our most influential contributions have involved figuring out—at the molecular, cellular, and biochemical levels—precisely how Magnaporthe is able to grow in host cells during the early biotrophic phase of the infection cycle. In my lab, we are focused on understanding Magnaporthe metabolism, asking what metabolic pathways are essential for infection and how metabolism is integrated with plant host defense suppression during a compatible fungus–rice interaction. We delete genes of interest in Magnaporthe and observe the effect on infection-related growth and development. Sometimes this produces breakthroughs in our understanding of host infection that could not, I would argue, have been determined by other means. For example, using a forward genetics screen we found a new component of fungal autophagy, a metabolic process of “self-eating” involving membranes. Fluorescent effector probes showed that during host infection, this mutant lost the plant-derived membranes that encase it during biotrophy. In other words, the integrity of host-derived biotrophic membranes is dependent on fungal metabolism. This was entirely unknown and unanticipated. Being a fungal guy, I like the idea that during compatible interactions, the fungus calls the shots and controls plant physiology at this interface. Successful colonization is much more than just the fungus lacking specific AVR genes.
A major unexpected breakthrough, that has shifted pretty much the whole focus of my lab, has been our recent discovery that Magnaporthe cytoplasmic effector secretion, but not apoplastic effector secretion, is controlled by tRNA modification and codon usage bias. We targeted a gene for deletion that we thought might be required for Magnaporthe biotrophic growth. Unexpectedly, in addition to affecting growth, deletion of this gene, encoding a modifier of tRNAs, abolished cytoplasmic but not apoplastic effector translation. This differential effect on effector translation was discovered only because we had the pBV591 vector that we put into this new mutant to better understand why it wasn’t growing in host cells. We saw the green apoplastic effector being produced but not the red cytoplasmic effector. It’s a classically fortuitous scientific discovery. Now, we are trying to figure out precisely how the tRNA modification and the codons it decodes can discriminate cytoplasmic from apoplastic effectors, whether we can use codon usage to find new effectors, and what this all tells us about effector evolution and secretion. These are big plant pathology questions emerging from tackling one of our core questions—how does a fungus grow in a plant cell?
Like a lot of academics with kids, work-life balance was difficult, particularly when they were very young and I was getting my program running. I receive Slack notifications from the lab at any time, but removing all other notifications from my phone was marvelous for my home life and, perhaps counterintuitively, for my productivity. Unless I am working to a hard deadline, I have realized quite recently that my work benefits most from slow thinking and slow writing, and there’s nothing to be gained from eking out a few hours of work on a Sunday afternoon when that time would be better spent with the kids. Of course, I can never switch off from my work and would never want to, but during weekends and evenings a quick email to myself, or voice message if I’m driving, is sufficient to keep ideas flowing and sharpening concepts without taking up too much family time. I have yet to work out how best to send a message to myself while cycling however.
My priorities right now are related to the impact factor (IF). My predecessor has set in place some structural changes that should bring the IF back to where it ought to be, and I want to keep it moving up. This is a society journal. A higher IF means more submissions, which generates more revenue, which helps pay for things like meetings. My vision is that the journal should be the number one destination for society members and for the field in general, making it a real force for the community. To enable this, I have a stellar senior editorial board, which should generate strong visibility for the next phase of the journal’s history and encourage people to consider MPMI a prime venue for original research. We will host a new quarterly webinar series featuring first authors and their recent MPMI work and continue with commentaries and press releases to highlight new work to the community. We will strive to improve the author experience (such as by reducing the time from acceptance to publication, which has been an issue) so that authors return to us year after year.
There are a lot of open questions, and no right or wrong ways to tackle them. If you have original ideas and a good system to work with, there is funding for it out there, and at least in the United States, agencies are eager to fund novel approaches to problems. But, you have to convince them and the panels that your approach is right and worth investing in, and it won’t happen overnight. In my case, I had to convince agencies that a detailed knowledge of fungal metabolism was important for a comprehensive understanding of the host–microbe interaction, something no one was considering at the time. Once I was able to do so, I have gone on to have 15 years of continuous federal funding on this topic, including having some of my recent work highlighted on the NSF website. So, be persistent and focused! Don’t get derailed by orthodoxy and groupthink. Absorb constructive criticism but do not listen to detractors or people who say, “you should work on this (‘fill-in-the-blank’ new trend) instead.” Your ideas will become the next trend.
My lab has shown that during a compatible interaction, fungal antioxidation mutants, even when secreting effectors, are unable to neutralize the host oxidative burst, triggering host defenses. This suggests that in the presence of an unchecked host oxidative burst effectors are ineffective. We don’t know why, or why ROS neutralization is a prime event in a compatible interaction. Perhaps ROS is generated in response to DAMPs and must be dealt with biochemically by the fungus during early development before effectors can be deployed. Alternatively, perhaps effectors are inactivated under these harsh cellular conditions. I think there is still a lot of scope here to untangle this mystery, and this is important, not least, because these results show how, when fungal antioxidation systems are compromised, susceptible plant hosts can turn the tables and defeat the invader.
Single-cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics are emerging as powerful new tools for our field, and I am excited to see where that goes. Hopefully, MPMI will be a venue for some of this work.
We have a geographically diverse, gender-balanced senior editorial board with a wide range of expertise and career stages, and I hope this will signal our commitment to inclusivity and collaboration across the community. We will continue mentoring the next generation of scientists through the AFE program, where early-career researchers hone their writing and communication skills producing commentaries and press releases for MPMI articles. First authors will get a chance to present their recently published work if chosen for one of the webinars, and this selection will be made with inclusivity in mind. At the last IS-MPMI Congress, the AFEs organized a satellite meeting, “Building Careers in MPMI through Effective Mentoring.” Although I was invited, I unfortunately could not attend, but MPMI will certainly support similar AFE-led career initiatives in the future.
For my research, I want to leave some rigorous, foundational, novel, and interesting papers that will stand the test of time and become seen as career springboards for the diversity of talent that passes through my lab. Similarly, I hope the journal will continue to be a home for future foundational studies in the field. I want to leave it a robust venue for groundbreaking reports, interdisciplinary collaborations, thoughtful discussions, and insightful reviews and for it to be known as a place that promotes diverse thinking and topics. Hopefully, this will help continue to draw talent to the field, as problems of food security are not going away any time soon.