Matt Templeton is a Professor in Plant-Microbe Interactions and is a 0.2 FTE appointment in the Plant and Food Joint Graduate School. He has been a faculty member since 2011. He is based at Plant and Food Research at Mt Albert.

My current research interest is the molecular basis for host-specificity and pathogenicity of plant pathogenic bacteria and fungi. My main project is isolating and characterizing effector proteins from the plant pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa). We have been using next generation sequencing technologies and transposon mutagenesis to identify these genes and others involved in pathogenesis. In conjunction with this work my lab and collaborators have been working on Psa comparative and population genomics and evolution by lateral gene transfer.

Distinctions/Honours:
Member of the Plant and Food Research team that won the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Science Prize in 2017 for its response to the Psa crisis.

Qualifications:
BSc (hons), PhD (Otago)

Media Keywords:
Fungal biology, Plant pathogen genomics, Plant interactions with pathogens