Mighty Microbes

Bacteria are constantly adapting to their environment. One of the ways they do this is by picking up or sharing bits of DNA, plasmids, to move genetic information around. Plasmids do everything from making bacteria better at promoting plant growth, to making them resistant to antibiotics. This movement of genetic information is essential for bacterial evolution, and for years we thought plasmids only stuck around when they were useful. Recently, we have found that plasmids and their preferred bacteria have been co-evolving to co-exist for years and changing the way we think about evolution!

Every year, the devastating rice blast fungus destroys enough rice to otherwise feed millions of people. While plants have complex immune systems which can recognise invading microbes and activate defence responses, disease-causing microbes such as the rice blast fungus are able to interfere with the immune system of their host and avoid detection. In this talk, I’ll explain how we engineered immune receptors to give rice new tools to defend itself against blast.