Emeritus Professor Brian Deverall

Summary

I have a career-long interest in the mechanisms of disease resistance in plants and have published many research papers, reviews, monographs and edited books.
I have played a leading role in the advancement of plant pathology. I have been involved with the International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) since its foundation in 1968, was Vice-President of ISPP from 1988-93, and have produced the ISPP Newsletter from 1994-2002 and from 2007 to date. The Newsletters may be seen at http://isppweb.org.
I received Fellowships from the American Phytopathology Society, the ISPP and the Australasian Plant Pathology Society.

Research interests

My major fields of research have been in the physiology of fungal parasitism and the mechanisms of resistance to disease in plants.

The main themes of the research are:

• discovery and assessment of the role of phytoalexins in resistance
• expression and elicitation of resistance to rust fungi in plants
• confirmation and analysis of systemic resistance to disease in plants.

Background

My academic qualifications are:-

BSc (Edinburgh) Botany, Honours I, in 1957
Diploma of Imperial College (London) Plant Pathology in 1960
PhD (London) Plant Pathology in 1960.

Key appointments were:-

Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth Fund, New York, U.S.A., held as Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A., 1960-61; and Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, U.S.A., 1961-62.
Lecturer, Department of Botany and Plant Technology, Imperial College, University of London, U.K., 1962-70.
Principal Scientific Officer, Agricultural Research Council Unit on Systemic Fungicides, Wye College, University of London, U.K., 1970-72.
Professor of Plant Pathology, University of Sydney, Australia, 1973-2001.
Head, Department of Plant Pathology and Agricultural Entomology, University of Sydney, 1973-1992.
Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney, since 2002.

Recent publications

• Deverall, B.J. (1967). Biochemical changes in infection droplets containing spores of Botrytis spp. incubated in the seed cavities of pods of bean (Vicia faba L.). Annals of Applied Biology 59, 375-387.
• Epton, H.A.S. and Deverall, B.J. (1968). A biochemical difference between healthy bean leaves resistant and susceptible to halo-blight disease caused by Pseudomonas phaseolicola. Annals of Applied Biology 61, 255-268.
• Letcher, R.M., Widdowson, D.A., Deverall, B.J. and Mansfield, J.W. (1970). Identification and activity of wyerone acid as a phytoalexin in broad bean (Vicia faba) after infection by Botrytis. Phytochemistry 9, 249-252.
• Bailey, J.A. and Deverall, B.J. (1971). Formation and activity of phaseollin in the interaction between bean hypocotyls (Phaseolus vulgaris) and physiological races of Colletotrichum lindemuthianum. Physiological Plant Pathology 1, 435-449.
• Deverall, B.J. (1977). Defence mechanisms of plants. Cambridge Monographs in Experimental Biology. 19. Cambridge University Press, 110 pp.
• Jones, D.R. and Deverall, B.J. (1978). The use of leaf transplants to study the cause of hypersensitivity to leaf rust, Puccinia recondita, in wheat carrying the Lr20 gene. Physiological Plant Pathology 12, 311-320.
• Deverall, B.J. and Dann, E.K. (1995). Induced resistance in legumes. In Induced Resistance to Disease in Plants (R. Hammerschmidt and J. Kuc eds) Kluwer Publishing Co., Dordrecht. pp 1-30.
• Dann, E.K., Meuwly, P., Metraux, J.-P. and Deverall, B.J. (1996). The effect of pathogen inoculation or chemical treatment on activities of chitinase and ß-1,3-glucanase and accumulation of salicylic acid in leaves of green bean, Phaseolus vulgaris L. Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology 49, 307-319.
• Saverimuttu, N. and Deverall, B. J. (1998). A cytological assay reveals pathotype and resistance gene specific elicitors in leaf rust infections of wheat. Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology 52, 25-34.
• Reglinski, T., Dann, E. and Deverall, B. (2007). Integration of induced resistance in crop production. In Induced Resistance for Plant Defence: a sustainable approach to crop protection (D. Walters, A. Newton and G. Lyon eds). Blackwell, Oxford. pp 201-228.

Contact

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