© BRIAN POWELL
They may not make the cut for big-budget wildlife documentaries anytime soon, but plant-microbe battles don’t lack for drama, as plant biologist Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi learned in an undergraduate seminar at the University of California, Berkeley. “I loved the idea that the plants and the microbes interact with each other,” she explains. “It’s this race to see who can win, who can be resistant, and who can be virulent.”
Intrigued, Iyer-Pascuzzi went on to become a graduate student in a plant pathology lab at Cornell University. But she soon found herself more drawn to the work of Cornell rice geneticist Susan McCouch. Due in part to six months spent in India as an undergraduate, Iyer-Pascuzzi had learned to appreciate “the idea that you could make a ...
