April 2021: Barbara Kunkel presented in the What’s New in MPMI Virtual Seminar Series: “Dual Role of Auxin in Regulating Plant Defense and Bacterial Virulence Gene Expression During Pseudomonas syringae PtoDC3000 Pathogenesis.”
November 2020: AAAS names Barbara Kunkel (and 6 other WashU faculty) as 2020 fellows
Kunkel, professor of biology, is being honored for important discoveries of how the bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae uses multiple strategies to manipulate its plant host’s hormone biology to promote pathogenesis and disease.
October 2020: Molecular Plant-Microbes Interactions Editor’s Pick for August 2020
Molecular Plant-Microbes Interactions (an American Phytopathological Society (APS) journal) chose the Kunkel Lab’s paper The plant hormone auxin may promote disease by regulating virulence gene expression as it’s Editor’s Pick for August 2020. “This work provides another example of how plant hormones can be used by microbes as an environmental cue, which seems to be emerging as a common strategy as scientists learn more about how pathogens and parasites sense their plant hosts”. READ MORE
January 2018: Plotting the path of plant pathogens
In a paper published in the Jan. 12 issue of PLOS Pathogens, the research team showed how one pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae, leverages auxin to suppress its host’s defenses and promote colonization and disease development. The bad bacteria infects a wide variety of plants, causing leaf-spotting blemishes, and is a familiar scourge to tomato farmers. READ MORE
September 2016: David Hadas Teaching Award goes to Barbara Kunkel
“She has been extraordinary in her dedication to student learning and success in this course and she continues to use data from the pre- and post-test, and analysis of student success correlated with clicker use and with participation in peer-learning groups to guide course revision. She continues to reflect on the course and make course improvements. ” READ MORE