Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Plants provide us with the food and oxygen we require for our survival. This dependence on plants for food production translates into agriculture being a major employer in Canada. Nevertheless, farm income is dependent on productivity and one of the major problems curtailing agricultural yield is disease caused by microorganisms called pathogens. To protect crops, farmers spray their fields with pesticides, which are chemicals designed to kill pathogens. As a complementary line of defense in crop protection is the use of varieties with enhanced disease resistance to pathogens. The development of these varieties has traditionally been the area of focus of plant breeders. However, molecular biologists and biochemists bring another dimension to this quest. Accordingly, they can develop molecular markers useful in assisting breeders to select resistant varieties. At the same time, molecular biologists and biochemists focus on developing long-term solutions, which require a thorough understanding of the molecular events leading to pathogen resistance. One of these solution is to develop chemistries designed to stimulate a crops own immune system, similar conceptually to the way a vaccine boost a persons immune system. In that line of thought, the goal of the proposed research program is to generate new knowledge that will bring us one step closer to unraveling the black box that holds the molecular events leading to pathogen resistance. This goal will be accomplished by studying the arabidopsis NPR1 pathway and the proteins that control this disease resistance system. The new knowledge generated in this proposal will be from modern multidisciplinary tools including molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The outcomes produced will, in time, lead to the development of durable and environmentally friendly disease resistance in crops, which will be an economic asset for Canadian farmers and an environmental benefit for all Canadians.