Shota graduated with an honour’s degree in Bachelor of Advanced Science majoring in molecular genetics at Curtin University in 2021. He has been researching at the CCDM since 2020 working on two fungal pathogens that infect wheat: Parastagonospora nodorum and Pyrenophora tritici-repentis.
He is now a PhD student with his research project focusing on the regulation of virulence factors in P. nodorum. He uses molecular techniques such as genetic manipulation to investigate transcription factors and promoters of necrotrophic effector genes.
PhD Project Title: Elucidating the mechanism of necrotrophic effector regulation in a fungal pathogen of wheat
Supervisors: Dr. Kar-Chun Tan, Dr. Callum Verdonk, Dr. Bernadette Henares, Dr. Carl Mousley and Dr. Evan John
One major part of the PhD project consists of investigating a transcription factor in P. nodorum required for the expression of necrotrophic effector genes. This is done through the truncation of the transcription factor gene/protein and uncovering interacting partners at the protein level.
The other major part of the project is fusing variations of promoters of an effector gene to a reporter gene to measure the expression of the variants.