Adjunct Associate Professor, PI
UC Berkeley/USDA
Jennifer D. Lewis, PhD, is an Adjunct Associate Professor and PI at the UC Berkeley/USDA Plant Gene Expression Center. The Lewis lab is interested in understanding host-pathogen interactions and Resistance gene signaling in model systems and crop species. The Lewis lab mainly focuses on disease and immune responses elicited by Pseudomonas syringae, a bacterial pathogen that infects many crops.
Lewis characterized the HopZ family of effector proteins from P. syringae, and identified the Resistance protein, ZAR1, that recognizes HopZ1a. She identified a pseudokinase, ZED1, required for HopZ1a recognition. The Lewis lab characterized molecular events that regulate ZAR1 activation, and showed ZAR1 is functionally conserved from the Brassicaceae to the Solanaceae. The Lewis lab also developed a seedling-based assay to identify wild tomato accessions with resistance to P. syringae.
Lewis received an Honors B.A.Sc. from McMaster University and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She was a post-doc at the University of Toronto.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
1:45 PM – 2:00 PM EDT