Diane Saunders

Diane G. O. Saunders is a British biologist and group leader at the John Innes Centre and an Honorary Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.[1][2] Her research investigates plant pathogens that pose a threat to agriculture. She was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award by the Royal Society in 2022.

Diane Saunders
Born
Diane G. O. Saunders
Alma materUniversity of Exeter (BSc, PhD)
AwardsRosalind Franklin Award (2022)
Scientific career
InstitutionsSainsbury Laboratory
John Innes Centre
University of East Anglia
ThesisCell-cycle mediated control of infection-related morphogenesis by the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae (2009)
Websitewww.jic.ac.uk/people/diane-saunders/

Early life and education

Saunders received a first class honours degree in Biology from the University of Exeter. She then went on to obtain her PhD in cell biology and molecular genetics also at the University of Exeter in 2009. Her PhD research investigated infection-related morphogenesis caused by a rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae.[3][4]

Research and career

After her PhD, Saunders worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Sainsbury Laboratory.[5][6][7] In 2014, Saunders launched her own research group at the John Innes Centre.[8] She investigates pathogens that significantly threaten agricultural production and food security.[9] Saunders has focused on Puccinia, which cause wheat rust. In particular, she has studied Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici.[10] She uses genomics-based approaches to monitor the dispersal of pathogens at an international scale.[11] She developed "field pathogenomics", a surveillance technique that can analyse diversity in pathogen populations from field samples.[11]

In 2018, Saunders published the identification of wheat stem rust in the UK for the first time in sixty years. This devastating disease has been associated with crop failure throughout history, although in the UK the last epidemic occurred in 1955. Saunders' observation triggered an international investigation, and identified that the UK strain belonged to the Digalu race.[12][13]

Saunders has worked with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research to create a platform that enables the diagnosis of plant diseases in realtime.[11] The platform, Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE),[14][15] seeks to monitor the spread of wheat yellow rust in Ethiopia and provide insight that can guide disease management responses.[16] She subsequently launched the programme in Nepal and Kenya.[17][18] When wheat strains diversify they can infect more rust-resistant varieties. As such, there is an urgent need to identify and monitor specific strains in real time.[17] As part of delivering this programme, Saunders offers training courses for plant pathologists.[17]

Selected publications

Her publications[1][2] include:

  • Effector biology of plant-associated organisms: concepts and perspectives[19]
  • Emergence of wheat blast in Bangladesh was caused by a South American lineage of Magnaporthe oryzae[20]
  • Single nucleus genome sequencing reveals high similarity among nuclei of an endomycorrhizal fungus[21]

Awards and honours

In 2019, Saunders launched "Women in Wheat", a training programme to support women scientists working in wheat research.[22] In 2022, she was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture for her "innovative mentoring and training project to support and empower undergraduates and early-career female researchers in plant sciences at postgraduate and postdoctoral levels".[23][8]

References
  1. Diane Saunders publications indexed by Google Scholar
  2. Diane Saunders publications from Europe PubMed Central
  3. Saunders, Diane G. O. (2009). Cell-cycle mediated control of infection-related morphogenesis by the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae. exeter.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Exeter. OCLC 1221002219.
  4. Diane G O Saunders; Stephen J Aves; Nicholas J Talbot (26 February 2010). "Cell cycle-mediated regulation of plant infection by the rice blast fungus". The Plant Cell. 22 (2): 497–507. doi:10.1105/TPC.109.072447. ISSN 1040-4651. PMC 2845407. PMID 20190078. Wikidata Q53339272.
  5. Diane G O Saunders; Susan Breen; Joe Win; et al. (10 August 2012). "Host protein BSL1 associates with Phytophthora infestans RXLR effector AVR2 and the Solanum demissum Immune receptor R2 to mediate disease resistance". The Plant Cell. 24 (8): 3420–3434. doi:10.1105/TPC.112.099861. ISSN 1040-4651. PMC 3462641. PMID 22885736. Wikidata Q48047222.
  6. Dario Cantu; Vanesa Segovia; Dan MacLean; et al. (22 April 2013). "Genome analyses of the wheat yellow (stripe) rust pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici reveal polymorphic and haustorial expressed secreted proteins as candidate effectors". BMC Genomics. 14: 270. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-270. ISSN 1471-2164. PMC 3640902. PMID 23607900. Wikidata Q34680844.
  7. Diane G O Saunders; Joe Win; Liliana M Cano; Les J Szabo; Sophien Kamoun; Sylvain Raffaele (6 January 2012). "Using hierarchical clustering of secreted protein families to classify and rank candidate effectors of rust fungi". PLOS One. 7 (1): e29847. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...729847S. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0029847. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3253089. PMID 22238666. Wikidata Q34125301.
  8. "Professor Diane Saunders receives the 2022 Rosalind Franklin Award to promote women in wheat". John Innes Centre. 2022-08-24. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  9. "Dr Diane Saunders". Microbes in Norwich. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  10. Diane Saunders - Tackling a formidable foe: the re-emergence of wheat stem rust in Western Europe, retrieved 2022-08-25
  11. "Professor Diane Saunders". John Innes Centre. 2018-11-27. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  12. "'Devastating' crop pathogen could re-emerge due to 'perfect storm of conditions'". farminguk.com. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  13. Clare M Lewis; Antoine Persoons; Daniel P Bebber; et al. (8 February 2018). "Potential for re-emergence of wheat stem rust in the United Kingdom". Communications Biology. 1 (1): 13. doi:10.1038/S42003-018-0013-Y. ISSN 2399-3642. PMC 6053080. PMID 30271900. Wikidata Q57148083.
  14. "Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics". GitHub. 13 December 2021.
  15. "Going virtual: MARPLE diagnostics training in the Covid era". 29 September 2021.
  16. "MARPLE Diagnostics". acaciaafrica.org. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  17. "Kenya becomes the third country to launch MARPLE Diagnostics hub". John Innes Centre. 2022-08-11. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  18. "MARPLE diagnostics reaches South Asia". John Innes Centre. 2022-05-06. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  19. J Win; A Chaparro-Garcia; K Belhaj; et al. (6 December 2012). "Effector biology of plant-associated organisms: concepts and perspectives". Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology. 77: 235–247. doi:10.1101/SQB.2012.77.015933. ISSN 0091-7451. PMID 23223409. Wikidata Q38065932.
  20. M Tofazzal Islam; Daniel Croll; Pierre Gladieux; et al. (3 October 2016). "Emergence of wheat blast in Bangladesh was caused by a South American lineage of Magnaporthe oryzae". BMC Biology. 14 (1): 84. doi:10.1186/S12915-016-0309-7. ISSN 1741-7007. PMC 5047043. PMID 27716181. Wikidata Q36157037.
  21. Kui Lin; Erik Limpens; Zhonghua Zhang; et al. (9 January 2014). "Single nucleus genome sequencing reveals high similarity among nuclei of an endomycorrhizal fungus". PLOS Genetics. 10 (1): e1004078. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PGEN.1004078. ISSN 1553-7390. PMC 3886924. PMID 24415955. Wikidata Q34397362.
  22. Matt (2019-10-09). "Women in Wheat to bring diversity to the field". Designing Future Wheat. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  23. "Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  24. "Innovator of the Year award recognises impact of international collaboration in wheat disease diagnostics". ACACIA. 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  25. "Dr Diane Saunders in BBSRC Innovator of the year final for international impact". John Innes Centre. 2019-04-30. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
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