Dr. Benjamin Schwessinger
Chief Investigator, ARC Training Centre for Future Crops Development
ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Division of Plant Science, Research School Biology, Australian National University
Areas of Research Interest –
Biology, Plant and Fungal Genomic, Plant-Pathogen interactions, biochemistry, bioinformatics, genome biology, open science.
Expertise & Skills –
Plant-pathogen assays, bioinformatics, genomics, biochemistry, grant writing, reproducible research practices, open science.
5 Key Research Papers –
• Auer, S., Haeltermann, N.A., Weissberger, T.L., Erlich, J.C., Susilaradeya, D., Julkowska, M., Gazda, M.A., Schwessinger, B.$, Jadavji, N.M.$, Reproducibility for Everyone Team, 2021. A community-led initiative for training in reproducible research. eLife 10, e64719.
• Schwessinger, B.$, Sperschneider, J., Cuddy, W.$, Miller, M., Garnica, D., Taylor, J., Dodds, P., Figueroa, M., Robert, P., Rathjen, J.$, 2017. A near complete haplotype-phased genome of the dikaryotic wheat stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici reveals high inter-haplome diversity. mBio 9, e02275-17.
• Pruitt, R.N.#, Schwessinger, B. #,$, Joe, A., Thomas, N., Liu, F., Albert, M., Robinson, M.R., Chan, L.J.G., Luu, D.D., Chen, H., Bahar, O., Daudi, A., Vleesschauwer, D.D., Caddell, D., Zhang, W., Zhao, X., Li, X., Heazlewood, J.L., Ruan, D., Majumder, D., Chern, M., Kalbacher, H., Midha, S., Patil, P.B., Sonti, R.V., Petzold, C.J., Liu, C.C., Brodbelt, J.S., Felix, G., Ronald, P.C.$, 2015. The rice immune receptor XA21 recognizes a tyrosine-sulfated protein from a Gram-negative bacterium. Science Advances 1, e1500245. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1500245.
• Macho, A.P. #, Schwessinger, B. #, Ntoukakis, V. #, Brutus, A., Segonzac, C., Roy, S., Kadota, Y., Oh, M.-H., Sklenar, J., Derbyshire, P., Lozano-Durán, R., Malinovsky, F.G., Monaghan, J., Menke, F.L., Huber, S.C., He, S.Y., Zipfel, C., 2014. A Bacterial Tyrosine Phosphatase Inhibits Plant Pattern Recognition Receptor Activation. Science 343, 1509–1512. doi:10.1126/science.1248849. IF: 41.04
• Schwessinger, B., Roux, M., Kadota, Y., Ntoukakis, V., Sklenar, J., Jones, A., Zipfel, C., 2011. Phosphorylation-Dependent Differential Regulation of Plant Growth, Cell Death, and Innate Immunity by the Regulatory Receptor-Like Kinase BAK1. PLoS Genet 7, e1002046. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002046.
Available Research Projects –
• Population genetics and genomics of the wheat stripe rust fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici.
• Improving gemomics led biosecurity of plant pathogens (joined industry project with Diversity Array).
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE GENETIC & FIELD TECHNOLOGIES FOR FUTURE CROPS
The ARC Training Centre for Accelerated Future Crops Development is funded by the Australian Research Council under its Industrial Transformation Training Hubs Program to run from 2022 to 2027.
It is a collaboration of universities, government research agencies and the Australian grains sector’s key stakeholders in training, R&D, social engagement, responsible innovation, breeding, marketing and delivery.
It also has international partners in gene-editing, SynBio, crop breeding, and, other partnerships for co-developing deep technologies to transform the agriculture industry and global food security.