PROFESSOR Robert park

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Fulbright Senior Scholar

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“The World Health Organisation has estimated that about one third of the world’s population is well fed, one third is underfed and one third is starving. Fungal diseases of plants are significant contributors to this imbalance.”

Professor Robert Park, Professor of Cereal Rust Research, the University of Sydney, has been awarded a 2010 Fulbright Senior Scholarship. He will research the genetic basis of resistance to a fungus caused disease known as stem rust in cereals for almost four months at the Cereal Disease Laboratory, St Paul, United States Department of Agriculture.

Robert says that rust diseases of wheat have caused significant losses in wheat crops globally, including in North America and Australia, and continue to impact on production.

“Along with insects, pathogens reduce yields of the eight most important crops by a staggering forty-two percent. The most effective, economical and environmentally sound way to control rust diseases is the development and cultivation of wheat varieties with in-built genetic resistance. Australia and the U.S. have been world leaders in this field since the early 1900s.”

Robert said that despite the identification and use of a number of rust-resistance genes to protect crops, the emergence of new rust strains can overcome their effectiveness. New rust strains arise via either mutation or the wind-borne movement of rust spores between regions and in some cases even continents. Because of this, there is a constant need to identify, characterize and deploy new resistance genes.

While in the U.S. his work will focus on the most important rust pathogen which is known as Puccinia graminis (P. graminis). This rust species can destroy entire crops – the last outbreak in Australia, in 1973, cost the wheat industry an estimated $300 million.

Robert’s project will be three fold. He will use DNA fingerprinting to compare strains of P.graminis in Australia with those present in the U.S., to see how they relate. He will also determine the potential impact on Australian wheats of a new strain of P.graminis that has emerged from eastern Africa. While researchers in Australia are not permitted to work with this strain due to quarantine restrictions, U.S. researchers are permitted to do so in the mid-west during the cold winter months. Thirdly he will evaluate a strain of stem rust that affects oats.

Robert has a BSc in Biological Sciences and PhD in plant pathology from La Trobe University. He was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship in 1995 and in 2009 received the Chinese Friendship Award, the highest award conferred by the Chinese Government to foreign experts. In addition to his academic work Robert has a strong interest in his family, general science, literature, woodwork, metalwork and mechanics.