GAIL PRESTON

Department of Biology

Gail's research focuses on on plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, with a particular emphasis on bacterial diseases of plants and mushrooms. Gail's group aims to understand how the micro-environment inside host organisms affects disease development, and how environmental factors can alter the balance between disease resistance and susceptibility. They study how the metabolic and regulatory networks and biosynthetic capabilities of plant-associated microorganisms contribute to disease development, and how knowledge of host-microbe interactions can be exploited for biotechnological applications and disease control. In recent work they have developed cutting edge techniques to study the role of RNA binding proteins in plant-microbe interactions and to image plant-pathogen interactions.