Ma Receives a NSF CAREER Grant

Li-Jun Ma, biochemistry and molecular biology and M2M, an expert in fungal comparative genomics, has received a five-year, $880,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to address Pathogenic fungi, the kind that cause wilt diseases in more than 100 plants species, can pose serious threats to agricultural productivity. The Fusarium oxysporum fungus causes wilt in plant species including tomato, cotton, watermelon and banana, costing farmers billions of dollars in losses worldwide each year. The disease is difficult to control. Once the soil is infected, the fungus can remain viable for 30 or 40 years, and at present “there really is no way to control it,” Ma says. By advancing understanding of the molecular mechanism of fungal pathogenesis, she hopes to increase ways to develop disease-resistant crops.