The Brauer lab at Agriculture Canada & University of Ottawa is recruiting a graduate student in the area of plant-microbe interactions to work on host resistance to the fungal pathogen Fusarium graminearum. This pathogen causes significant losses in cereal crops (wheat, corn, barley) and our understanding of the quantitative resistance to the pathogen is limited. The student will work primarily in the Brauer lab (cereal genetics & phenomics) at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre and collaborate closely with a metabolomics research group and a mycology research group within the center to identify plant and fungal genes that contribute to disease resistance or susceptibility. A series of Fusarium strains that are disrupted for genes of interest have been generated based on previous proteomics and transcriptomic work. The impact of these genetic changes on disease progression in resistant and susceptible plant backgrounds will be monitored. High-throughput imaging methods and biochemical methods for monitoring plant resistance phenotypes will be evaluated for their potential in distinguishing plant responses to fungal attack.

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Please apply through the online portal: Plant Pathology MSc or PhD student (cfp-psc.gc.ca)