InterStellar
Connecting with the Recipients of the 2025 Wolf Prize in Agriculture
Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Wolf Prize in Agriculture: Jeff Dangl, Jonathan D. G. Jones, and Brian J. Staskawicz. In this issue, MPMI Assistant Features Editor Jawahar Singh talks with Jonathan Jones about his career. Future issues will include interviews with Dr. Dangl and Dr. Staskawicz.
InterConnections
Mentorship is a critical component in developing scientific excellence and community sustainability. At the 2025 IS-MPMI Congress, early-career researchers (ECRs) and senior scientists participated in a workshop on Building Careers in MPMI Through Effective Mentoring, sharing their experiences and talking about what effective mentorship looks like.
Interview with New MPMI Editor-in-Chief Professor Richard A. Wilson
MPMI Assistant Features Editor Ruby Tiwari interviewed incoming MPMI EIC Richard A. Wilson, the Charles Bessey Professor of Plant Pathology, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, about his connections with MPMI and the IS-MPMI community, his career path, his vision for MPMI, and emerging areas of technological advances.
Spotlight on Dr. Ryan DelPercio
Ryan DelPercio is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, Genome Center, investigating the transcriptional and regulatory networks underlying symbiotic nitrogen fixation and developing advanced CRISPR-based molecular tools. Learn how his research uncovered how soybean and its symbiotic partner Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens coordinate their transcriptional programs through time.
News and Opportunities
Join us in supporting our early-career members by giving to the Michael Mishkind Travel Fund. This fund honors the memory of Michael Mishkind, who was a long-time program director at the U.S. National Science Foundation and a strong supporter of research on plant biotic interactions. Learn how you can donate today!
Your continued engagement strengthens IS-MPMI’s ability to champion our science, elevate new voices, and keep MPMI, our community’s premier forum, vibrant. IS-MPMI will be updating membership rates February 1, 2026. Members renewing a two-year membership may renew at the current rate through January 31, 2026.
Did you know that highlighting your research in Interactions increases readership compared to papers that don’t have Spotlights published in Interactions? Consider doing a Spotlight today!
Explore recordings and posters from sessions on microbial infection strategies, effector interference, and local/inter-organ signaling in plant immunity and mutualistic interactions available in IS-MPMI Rewind.
Connect and collaborate with members in our new IS-MPMI Member Online Community on LinkedIn, and follow IS-MPMI and MPMI on Bluesky to keep up on events, news, and the latest research.
Join us in welcoming new members to the IS-MPMI community.
What’s New
A new study by Rune Hansen et al. published in MPMI has identified Aegilops cylindrica, a wild grass closely related to wheat, as a genetic reservoir for resistance against the fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici—the cause of Septoria tritici blotch. These findings open the door to breeding more resilient wheat varieties and reducing global dependence on chemical fungicides.
Catch up on recent MPMI Editor’s Picks authored by Xiaoxiao Zhang et al., “Translocation of Effector Proteins into Plant Cells by the Flax Rust Pathogen Melampsora lini,” and Po-Yuan Shih et al., “A Salivary Effector of the Pea Aphid Interacts with Pea Proteins and Enhances Its Performance on the Host Plant.”
Check out the Job Center on the IS-MPMI website.