Guy Sobol: Plant Physiology First Author

Guy Sobol, first author of “Tomato receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase Fir1 is involved in flagellin signaling and pre-invasion immunity“

Current Position: Ph.D. candidate at the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, Israel, under the supervision of Prof. Guido Sessa.

Education: M.Sc. in Plant Sciences at Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and B.Sc. in Life Sciences at Tel-Aviv University.

Non-scientific Interests: Swimming, biking, and strength training.

Brief bio: During my undergraduate studies I was exposed to the subject of host-pathogen interactions in a class given by Prof. Guido Sessa, where I learned about the arms race between plants and pathogens. During my M.Sc. degree in the lab of Prof. Guido Sessa, I designed and executed a screen aimed at identifying enzymatically active proteins secreted by pathogenic bacteria into host plant cells. In my Ph.D. research, I focus on the characterization of tomato immune signaling complexes and investigate their role in regulation of defense responses. Using molecular biology techniques, we identified a tomato receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase that interacts with plant receptors of bacterial flagellin and is involved in immune signaling and pre-invasion immunity. Our research contributes to the dissection of plant immune signaling networks and to the identification of their protein components.