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.

Could you reflect on your past and present involvement with MPMI and the IS-MPMI community?

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.

Could you share your journey into plant science—especially what first sparked your interest in molecular plant–microbe interactions—and what continues to motivate you in this field?

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.

Were there any key mentors or turning points early in your career that helped define your scientific direction?

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.

How would you describe some of your most influential contributions to colleagues and early-career researchers?

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.

Looking back, were there any unexpected discoveries, challenging experiments, or surprising results that shifted your scientific trajectory in meaningful ways?

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?

What has been one of the most significant challenges in your research career so far, and how did you approach or overcome it?

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.

As you step into this editorial leadership role, what is your vision for MPMI? Are there specific directions or priorities you hope to bring to the journal?

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.

What advice would you offer to early-career scientists who aspire to make impactful contributions in molecular plant–microbe interactions research?

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.

Are there aspects of molecular plant–microbe interactions research that you believe remain misunderstood or underappreciated by the broader scientific community?

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.

What emerging areas or technological advances in molecular plant–microbe interactions do you find most exciting for exploration?

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.

As the new editor-in-chief of MPMI, how do you hope to support the next generation of scientists and foster a more inclusive and collaborative research community?

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.

Finally, looking ahead, what legacy do you hope to leave—both through your research and your leadership of MPMI—that will inspire future generations of scientists?

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.