Dr Stefan Kusch

Stefan Kusch studied biology at Göttingen University (Germany) and earned his Ph.D. at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) in 2017. He then joined the INRAE in Toulouse (France), where he helped uncover the evolution of broad host range in a fungal plant pathogen. In 2019, he rejoined RWTH Aachen University to study powdery mildew fungi. His current research is funded by starting grants from the Excellent Research Space at RWTH, and the German Research Foundation.

Stefan’s work with powdery mildew fungi began already in 2012, when he investigated effectors assuming an RNase-like fold in his master’s thesis. Since then, he focusses on the molecular genetics and evolution of plant-powdery mildew interactions. In addition to dissecting the genetics behind isolates of the cereal pathogen Blumeria graminis f.sp. hordei overcoming mlo-based broad-spectrum powdery mildew resistance, he investigates how transposable elements affect the genomes of these fungi, their regulation, and their contribution to the innovation of novel coding and noncoding RNA molecules. In a broader sense, he is leading efforts towards comparative genome analysis of powdery mildew fungi and the evolution of the obligate biotrophic lifestyle in this lineage.