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Research is primarily directed towards understanding the biochemistry and molecular biology
of entomopathogenic fungi with the aim of using them as a source of innovation for the
agricultural industries. Many of my studies have employed the insect pathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae as a model for understanding how fungi respond to changing
environments, initiate host invasion, colonize insect tissues, and counter host immune responses.
The identification and characterization of fungal toxic products, which are often specific to
particular biochemical/organ systems in the insect, has provided a vast resource of genes which
we are employing to enhance the pathogenicity of insecticidal fungi and viruses, and to produce
insect-resistant plants. The Entomopathogen Genome Recourse (TEGR) at the University of Maryland
(http://TEGR.umd.edu) is being used to self-publish our EST projects with M. anisopliae.
and other fungi. ESTs were used to fabricate M. anisopliae. microarrays, for genome-wide analysis
of the changes in gene expression accompanying infection and other disease processes, and to investigate the genetic circuitry that regulates and executes this program.
A second focus of our work is to determine the range of this gene resource among different species of insect
pathogenic fungi and to seek, through the diversity of their insect hosts, a rational explanation for
the enormous proliferation of toxins and secondary metabolites among pathogens. Other projects
include the use of insects as a model system for a disease process (invasive aspergillosis) in man.
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