Bentham Lab, Centre for Programmable Biological Matter, Durham University. Structural biology and de novo protein design applied to host-pathogen interactions, plant immunity, and neglected tropical d...

To cause rice blast disease, the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae develops a specialised infection cell called an appressorium, which generates enormous turgor to breach the rice leaf cuticle. Al...

To cause rice blast disease, the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae develops a specialised infection cell called an appressorium, which generates enormous turgor to breach the rice leaf cuticle. Al...

Lichens are symbiotic associations between filamentous fungi and photosynthetic micro-organisms, such as green algae and/or cyanobacteria, that result in a single anatomically complex structure that…

The limited diversity and recognition scope of natural plant immune receptors impede resistance breeding against rapidly evolving pathogens. Here we report programmable design of synthetic plant immun...

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The rapid evolution of plant pathogens poses a persistent threat to global agricultural sustainability, often outpacing the discovery and deployment of natural disease resistance genes. While bioengin...

What makes a plant killer lose its edge? This project will investigate why fungal pathogens lose virulence when they are grown in laboratory culture away from their host plant. Use cutting-edge…

The mechanisms underlying the adaptation of lichens to nutrient-poor environments are poorly understood. Here, Happacher et al. show that a globally distributed lichen fungus produces an iron-scavengi...

Plants and animals respond to pathogen attack by mounting innate immune responses that require intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins. These immune receptors detect pathog...

Triticum turgidum cv Kronos is a tetraploid wheat cultivar that underpins one of the most widely used community platforms for functional genomics. Over the past decade, researchers have generated c. ...