Euan Cawston

I enjoy learning about plant and fungi at a molecular level. I am fascinated by the world inside plant and fungal cells and how these systems communicate with each other. My research has focussed on fungal diseases of plants. My master research focused on the plant side, investigating plant immune peptides in poplar and willow effective against rust fungi. Now at TSL I am working on a protein kinase-controlled pathway in a blast fungus called Magnaporthe oryzae. This pathway controls the development of a specialised penetrative structure which allows the fungi to enter plant leaf cells and is essential for infection of the host plant rice. I am interested in this and other fungal/plant research as it has potential long-term applicability to technologies in agriculture such as disease control systems.