Agricultural crops suffer severe losses to plant disease. Approximate 16% of worldwide annual crop production is lost to microbial diseases, of which 70-80% is caused by fungal pathogens.

Virulent new pathogens are an ongoing threat to food security worldwide, driving increased fungicide use with detrimental environmental impacts. The project will use protein evolution in the wet lab and in silico to create new-to-nature immune receptor proteins for the genetic control of fungal diseases and enable rapid response to disease outbreaks. The project will implement protein chemistry and structural biology to reveal molecular details of pathogen recognition and guide further targeted protein engineering. This project will involve collaborations with the ANU Research School of Biology and industrial partner GRDC.