Nick Talbot

The Sainsbury Laboratory

Talk title: Investigating the Cell Biology of Rice Infection by the Blast Fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

Professor Nick Talbot is Executive Director of The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich. His research is focused on the biology of plant diseases and he utilises a range of cell biology, genetics and genomics approaches in his work. Nick is interested in understanding how fungi are able to invade plants using specialised infection structures called appressoria, how plant tissue is invaded, and how fungi suppress plant immunity. His main contributions have been in understanding plant infection by the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. Rice blast disease destroys up to a third of the annual global rice harvest – enough rice to feed 60 million people. It is therefore an important economic and humanitarian problem. 
 
Nick received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of East Anglia. After postdoctoral research at Purdue University in the USA, he moved to the University of Exeter as a Lecturer, later becoming Professor of Molecular Genetics, Head of the School of Biosciences, and Deputy Vice Chancellor. He joined The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich as Executive Director in 2018. He has authored more than 170 publications. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a member of EMBO, a member of Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of The Royal Society. He is one of the four current Gatsby Plant Science Advisors.