Teaching

Molecular Plant-microbe Interactions Course

Plant microbial pathogens cause huge economic losses in agriculture, have a negative esthetic impact in our urban areas and threaten human health since several of the plant pathogens also produces harmful toxins. However, not all microbes are harmful to plants, some symbiotic microorganisms can have beneficial effects on plant health and environment. 

Most plants resist infection by vast majority of microbes.  Due to sheer diversity of the infection mechanisms that microbes use, they are able to infect certain plants and cause diseases. How do plants protect themselves from pathogen attack? What differentiates a resistant plant from a susceptible plant? How can we engineer durable disease resistance in important crops?

Mechanisms are being elucidated explaining what exactly occurs at the molecular level when a plant becomes infected with fungi, viruses or bacteria. In this course, the participating students would be introduced into this fascinating, continuoesly evolving and complex biology of plant microbe interactions.   Students will also learn about the current technologies used in developing pathogen resistant crop plants as well as broadening beneficial plant-microbe interactions to many important crop species.

The course will integrate lectures, student seminars, group discussions, method presentations, laboratory work and data analysis as well as seminars from guest scientists from leading institutions.