To echo my fellow Liverpool FC supporter Gary Foster (2024), who is one of many very hard acts to follow in the list of previous honourees, I am truly humbled and honoured that the British Society for Plant Pathology has awarded me an Honorary Membership. After completing a Biochemistry BSc at Liverpool University I was fortunate to be offered by Mike Wilson (then at Liverpool) a Science and Engineering Research Council studentship in a collaboration with John Antoniw and Ray White (who were based at Rothamsted Experimental Station) to work on pathogenesis-related proteins. This was an exciting period because Ray had recently discovered that salicylic acid and its synthetic derivative aspirin induced pathogenesis-related protein accumulation and increased resistance to tobacco mosaic virus in tobacco (White 1979). This was seminal work that led to our current detailed understanding of defensive signal transduction in plants. Although not the best PhD student I nevertheless, due to my mentors' efforts, got through it and learned much. Following this I was determined to turn things around sufficiently to make some sort of contribution to the study of plant–pathogen interactions. I was very fortunate, therefore, to join Dan Klessig's at the University of Utah Medical School; later moving with him to the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Dan was expanding his research from molecular virology in mammalian cell culture to investigations of gene expression in plants. In Dan's lab I studied the regulation of plant gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels in response to stimuli such as light and virus infection. Probably the most significant work that came out of this period was the finding that salicylic acid appeared to be a natural endogenous defence signal, which built on Ray White's foundational discovery. Subsequently, Dan and his group went on to publish many important papers in the defensive signal transduction field, and I was fortunate to see the early stages of that fascinating story. Wanting to learn more about viruses themselves (as opposed to how plants respond to them), I contacted Milt Zaitlin about joining his lab in Cornell's Plant Pathology Department. By chance, he had a senior research associate position available. Milt was one of the founders of molecular studies of plant viruses with a track record of producing highly successful alumni, so this was an amazing career opportunity. Milt was an inspirational experimentalist, still worked in the lab until he was in his seventies, and managed his research group with great sensitivity. Both of my postdoctoral mentors influenced how I managed a lab when subsequently I was fortunate enough to obtain a teaching and research post at Cambridge. The work at Cambridge has investigated various phenomena in plant–microbe interactions including, among other things, defensive signal transduction pathways and how they are subverted by viruses, and the effects of virus infection on plant interactions with insects including those like aphids, which transmit viruses, as well as beneficial insects such as bees. All the work has depended upon successful collaboration, notably with my longest-standing collaborators Alex Murphy and Peter Palukaitis, as well as with so many marvellous colleagues, students and postdocs I have been most fortunate to work with over many years. Finally, I would like to thank the BSPP both for this honour and for much support over the years, most notably providing bursaries for two superb masters students, but most importantly for creating a marvellous community of plant pathologists. The author declares no conflicts of interest. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
John P. Carr (Thu,) studied this question.