Vincent Were

Postdoctoral Scientist
Nick Talbot Group

My interest in plant fungal pathogens started in 2009 while working at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) -Hub in Kenya; to analyse maize grain samples for fungal contamination and quantify the levels of mycotoxins. I later on moved to the University of Queensland, Australia, for further studies and graduated with a Master’s degree in Biotechnology.

In 2018, I completed my PhD studies in Biological sciences from the University of Exeter and currently working as a post-doctoral researcher in Professor Nick Talbot’s group. My research project is geared towards understanding the population biology of rice blast in Sub-Saharan Africa with an ultimate goal of developing rice lines with durable resistance to rice blast disease. I am also using molecular and live cell imaging as tools to analyse effector-host cell interactions during infection and to observe cytological changes. The aim is to determine sets of genes involved in disease process during plant-pathogen interaction, and to gain insight into the function of un-characterised secreted proteins in Magnaporthe oryzae and on their putative effector host targets in rice.