Congratulations to David Mackey, who was recently awarded a new grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Entitled "Linking bacterial pathogen fitness to the composition of apoplast and xylem niches in maize", this grant examines Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii, a bacterial pathogen that infects both the mesophyll apoplast and xylem of maize plants. The proposed work will characterize the fluids within these spatially distinct compartments during infection and link their composition to selective pressures that influence both reproductive fitness and pathogenicity of the bacteria as well as susceptibility of genetically diverse varieties of maize.