The Translational Plant Sciences Graduate Program is pleased to announce that third year fellow Alex Turo was recently awarded funding through the Tech Hub Student Grant program. This competitive program is open to current undergraduate and graduate students with a project idea that demonstrates a tie to technology. Alex was one of eight semifinalists who were invited to pitch their projects in November, and one of four finalists selected to receive funding.

Broadly speaking, Alex’s project, titled Digitizing disease: Towards the construction of a digital plant to examine plant-pathogen interactions, seeks to make a positive impact on the global problem of plant diseases. Specifically, Alex seeks to build a network to examine virulence effectors secreted by pathogenic bacteria into host plant cells, and defense signaling pathways of host plants that minimize pathogen virulence.  The Tech Hub grant will support Alex’s efforts to build this network from the ground up over the coming year.