I have occupied various roles at Plant & Food Research over more than thirty years including programme leader, team leader, Biosafety Advisory Committee member, Containment Sector Manager and Science Group Leader. I have recently relinquished my group leadership role to focus on research. My research interests have evolved over time but have always had a core foundation in molecular genetics. After joining the Plant & Food predecessor DSIR to work on the molecular biology of fungal pathogens, I quickly became involved in obtaining outside funding for its early gene mapping projects. I developed a new focus on identifying disease resistance genes. Most of this early research was in apple and ultimately led to the cloning of a powdery mildew resistance gene in apple. An important principle we developed as a group was to ensure funding covered both the host and pathogen in depth, to build the resources needed to understand this complex interaction. Disease resistance, and the interaction between microbial pathogens of plants and their hosts have remained a longer-term interest, having subsequently been involved in the cloning of two more disease resistance genes. The arrival of the virulent kiwifruit pathogen Psa meant a change in focus in order to support an industry that was initially in crisis mode. I am proud of the important role our whole group played to respond to this crisis, many were named in the Plant & Food Research team honoured with the 2017 Prime Minister’s Science Prize for the Psa response. My current research focus are intrinsic disorder in plant and phytopathogen proteins and the roles these play in the interplay between host hormonal stress signalling and pathogen.

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