Kansas State University

Greetings to friends, alumni, and supporters of KSU Plant Pathology

Winter is a good time to reflect on the hard work, perseverance, and growth throughout the year. With that idea of reflection, we at the Department of Plant Pathology welcome you to this first edition of the Departmental E-newsletter. This E-newsletter will be published twice a year at the end of each semester and will highlight the people and the new and exciting events of our department. 

Plant Pathology by the Numbers –  Snapshot of 2018

• Graduate Students – 33
• Post Doctoral Researchers – 15
• Visiting Scientists – 5
• Publications – 122
  
• Diagnostic lab samples – >1,000
• Competitive grants – $6.9 Million
  
• Total external funding  – $7.4 million
  

Welcome To Our Newest Faculty

Lucky Mehra

Dr. Mehra received his B.S.  in Plant Protection from Punjab Agricultural University in Punjab India, Ph.D. his M.S. in Plant Pathology from the University of Georgia and his Ph.D in Plant Pathology with a minor in Statistics from North Carolina State University, Raleigh. He has a 100% teaching appointment, teaching Principles of Plant Pathology that is offered every spring semester and is the biggest course offered in terms of student enrollment. This is a fundamental course in plant pathology that introduces students to different types of plant pathogens and to cause, effect, and management of plant diseases. In addition to teaching, he coordinates undergraduate minor in plant pathology, and serve as a senior editor on American Phytopathological Society education center. Dr. Mehra collaborates with colleagues in the department and across the US in researching and analyzing quantitative aspects of plant diseases. Current projects are focused on epidemiology of citrus greening, angular leaf spot of strawberry, white mold of soybean, and Septoria nodorum blotch of wheat

David Cook

Dr. Cook grew up in Ohio and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Crop Soil Environmental science in 2005 and 2008, in Virginia Tech University. For his Master’s program, he worked in a soybean breeding program where he looked at genotype by environment effects on soybean traits important for Natto production. Dr. Cook went on to do his PhD at the Department of Plant pathology in University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his thesis was on soybean-soybean cyst nematode interactions and understanding host defense. Then, for three years from 2013-2016, he moved to Netherlands to be a postdoc at Wageningen University. There, he researched the soil borne fungal pathogen, Verticillium dahliae, focusing on molecular genetics and genomics related to fungal virulence on tomato and Arabidopsis. Dr. Cook joined K-State in January 2017 as an associate professor to continue studying molecular plant-microbe interactions. His lab currently has two broad themes: 1) molecular control of transcription and chromatin dynamics in fungal plant pathogens; 2) developing and deploying RNA-targeting CRISPR in plants. His lab has received support from federal funding  through the USDA Plant Biotic Interactions Program, and through a Young Faculty Award through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He received further support for the RNA-targeting project from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). He is also teaching the proposal seminar course for graduate students in the Spring semester and Molecular plant-microbe interactions course in the Fall of odd years. Dr. Cook’s lab has grown a lot since he joined, and now includes three postdocs, Wenguang Zheng, Wei Zhang, and Veerendra Sharma, two PhD students, Jun Huang and Jameka Jefferson, and two undergraduates, Shumin Li and Brett Plemons. When not working, Dr. Cook enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 children, coaching their basketball team, and being outdoors.

Jessica Rupp

Dr. Rupp has been able to call Kansas home for the majority of her life. Born and raised in Pittsburg, Kansas, she attended Pittsburg State University where she received a dual B.S. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. While at Pitt State, she joined a lab working on transgenic tomato, which ultimately led her to apply to work in Dr. Harold Trick’s plant transformation lab. She become a graduate student co-advised by Dr. Trick and Dr. John Fellers, working on wheat streak mosaic virus. After her PhD, Dr. Rupp accepted a faculty position at Montana State University, where she worked as a state Extension specialist, working on potatoes, sugar beets, and pulse crops. Based on her work in Montana, she and research assistant professor Dr. Myron Bruce published a book chapter on potato transformation. Since the summer 2018, Dr. Rupp is the assistant professor of Applied Wheat Pathology and is focused on several diseases affecting wheat. These include many important Kansas wheat issues such as wheat streak mosaic complex, Fusarium Head blight, the leaf spot complex, root rots, and more. She is offering a new class starting in fall 2019, Integrated Strategies of Pant Disease Management, which will be aimed mostly at upper level agronomy but also plant pathology students who wish to gain practical field experience. Dr. Bruce and two graduate students, Dylan Mangel and Nar Ranabhat, also moved from Montana to stay in her lab. When not at work, Dr. Rupp likes running with her Hungarian vizsla dog named Asta and watching her daughter’s athletic activities as she competes for Wamego Middle School and Northeast Kansas Track Club. 

Shahideh Nouri

Dr. Nouri is originally from Iran and completed her B.S. and M.S. degrees in plant protection and plant pathology, respectively, from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran. For her M.S. project, she studied the natural populations of Ralstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt of plants in the tomato/potato family.  Certain strains of this bacterium are select agents in the U.S. She identified R. solanacearum phylotype II/biovar 2T in potato fields in Iran and reported the existence of this group outside South America for the first time. Soon after, Dr. Nouri came to the U.S. in 2007 to join a Ph.D. program at the Plant Pathology department in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For her dissertation, she researched molecular-based phylogenetics of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) and elucidated possible mechanisms that gave rise to the variation of CMV isolates in the U.S. Afterwards, she joined Bryce Falk’s research group at University of California -Davis and investigated a novel strategy to manipulate insect-specific viruses (ISV) to target the Asian citrus psyllid (D. citri), the most important recent invasive insect vector of a plant pathogen in the U.S. It vectors the bacterial plant pathogen (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus) that causes a citrus greening disease. Dr. Nouri discovered a diverse array of novel viruses (virome) in global natural populations of D. citri using small RNA and transcriptome sequencing. The potential use of these new viruses as biological agents is under investigation. Dr. Nouri joined our department in June 2018 and plans to continue studying ISVs of D. citri. In addition, her research will include the wheat virome and genetic variation of natural populations of Wheat streak mosaic virus (WSMV) in wheat, WSMV-wheat curl mite interactions, and Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV)-aphid microbiome interactions. Dr. Nouri will also be teaching Plant Virology at the graduate level in the fall 2019. Dr. Nouri`s hobbies/interests outside of work include walking, hiking, and traveling.

Best Wishes to Retiring Faculty

Along with welcoming new faculty we had two faculty retire recently and we thank them for their many contributions to the department.

Bikram Gill – University Distinguished Professor Emeritus 

Bikram Gill retired from the Department of Plant Pathology in July,following 39 years of service to K- State and the KSU College of Agriculture. A native of the Punjab region of India, Bikram came to the US in 1968 to attend college. In 1977, he arrived at K-State to lead a new wheat cytogenetics program. By 1984, his impact was extended when he established the Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) at Kansas State University. The WGRC brought together plant pathologists, entomologists, breeders, and USDA personnel with a vision of germplasm conservation and utilization for crop improvement for sustainable production by broadening the crop genetic base; creating and promoting the free exchange of materials, technology, and new knowledge in genetics and biotechnology among the world’s public and private organizations.  State-of-the-art laboratories, greenhouses, and field plot facilities helped establish the WGRC. Interaction with Bikram on a day-to-day basis will be missed, but he will still be around, collaborating with colleagues and stimulating new ideas. Bikram can still be reached at his K-State e-mail, bsgill@ksu.edu. We’re sure he would love to hear from past colleagues!

Kevin McCluskey – Research Professor 

Kevin McCluskey, has been curator of the Fungal Genetics Stock Center for the last 23 years, spanning three institutions. About the last four and a half have been at K-State. Dr McCluskey is retiring to a job in private industry starting in January 2019.  Kevin’s meticulous attention to detail has served the collection well and has raised the visibility and reputation of the FGSC. He developed the current database and modernized many of the preservation and collection management protocols we all rely on. Kevin was successful at bringing funding to the FGSC and to the greater collections community, with the hope of building a sustainable future for all collections. There was no greater authority or champion of culture collections than Dr. McCluskey. His expertise and enthusiasm for the project will be missed. Kevin will not be dropping out of contact with the fungal genetics community.  You can continue to contact him through his K-State e-mail address (mccluskeyk@ksu.edu). You can reach out to him at his K-State e-mail to wish him well.

Congratulations to our Recent Graduates!

The Department of Plant Pathology is proud of our students who were recognized at the December 2019 Graduate School Commencement Ceremony.

Christian Webb

• Degree: M.S. Plant Pathology 
• Major Professor: Erick De Wolf 
• Thesis: Epidemiological factors impacting the development of Wheat streak mosaic virus outbreaks 
• Position after graduation: Assistant Director, Great Plains Diagnostic Network

Christian is pictured at right with Dr. Marty Draper.

Lorena Gomez-Montano

• Degree: PhD Plant Pathology 
• Major Professor: Ari Jumpponen and Megan Kennelly 
• Thesis: Assessing the response of soil microbial communities to different vegetable cropping methods using high-throughput DNA and RNA-based techniques and community analyses

We also want to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Karen Garrett. Dr. Garrett was Lorena’s original major professor and remained highly involved in Lorena’s project after leaving KSU.

Anupama Joshi

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Bikram Gill 
• Thesis: Map-based cloning of the Hessian fly resistance gene H13 in Wheat

Daljit Singh

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Jesse A. Poland 
• Thesis: Phenomics enabled genetic dissection of complex traits in wheat breeding 
• Position after graduation:  Fellow Post-Doc, Kansas State University, Dr. Jesse A. Poland 

Andres Salcedo 

• Degree: PhD Genetics 
• Major Professor: Eduard Akhunov 
• Thesis: Unraveling the mechanisms of Sr35-based resistance in the wheat-Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici pathosystem 
• Position after graduation:  Fellow Post-Doc, North Carolina State University, Dr. Lina Quesada

Last but not least, we’d like to recognize one more student. Mingying Xiang was in the Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources, but her project had a strong plant pathology focus looking at two different turf diseases and our own Dr. Kennelly served as her co-major professor. At right she is pictured at commencement with Dr. Kennelly along with Dr. Jack Fry from Horticulture and Natural Resources.

Congrats to all these students, and their mentors!

 Under the direction of Dr. Jesse Poland, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics was awarded $4.9 million from U.S. Agency for International Development for the next five years. Standard deployment of a new wheat variety can take over a decade to do properly, a substantial amount of time used for verification. With the extension of the Applied Wheat Genomics lab, genomic tools can expedite the deployment process down to four years. Faster deployments of wheat varieties will increase our global ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions and disease outbreaks. This lab was one of three at Kansas State University to receive additional funding to combat global food insecurity and poverty. For more information, you can visit the Innovation Lab website at http://wheatgenetics.org/innovation-lab.

Dr. Eduard Akhunov, has been ranked in the top 1% of researchers worldwide by Highly Cited Researchers 2018. “This list recognizes world-class researchers for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.” Highly Cited Researchers identifies top scientists in both the fields of science and social sciences “who have demonstrated significant influence through publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade.” Dr. Akhunov has been a member of K-State’s Plant Pathology department since 2007. His research focuses on wheat genome diversity and evolution, disease resistant genes in wheat as well as genetic/genomic tools and resources for wheat improvement. For more information about Highly Cited Researchers 2018, please visit https://hcr.clarivate.com/. 

Leadership changes

This edition of the Plant Pathology newsletter was prepared as a team effort by Marty Draper, Kseniya Chumachenko, Elina Adhikari, Joel Steyer, Alex Kieffaber, and Megan Kennelly.