Rate My Professor Peter Solomon

Professor Peter Solomon is a Professor and Lab Leader in Wheat Biosecurity in the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University, where he directs the Solomon Group and serves as Director of the ARC Training Centre in Plant Biosecurity. He completed his BAppSc (Hons) and PhD at the University of Queensland, investigating molybdenum-containing enzymes in Rhodobacter capsulatus. He then undertook a postdoctoral position at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Denmark, studying the nutritional basis of the tomato-Cladosporium fulvum interaction. In 2000, he moved to the Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens at Murdoch University to research Parastagonospora nodorum-wheat interactions. In 2008, he joined the ANU Research School of Biology as Lab Leader, advancing to Professor and expanding his leadership in plant biosecurity initiatives.

Solomon's research centers on fungal diseases of wheat, particularly Septoria nodorum blotch caused by Parastagonospora nodorum and Septoria tritici blotch by Zymoseptoria tritici, with emphasis on fungal secondary metabolism, novel metabolite discovery, plant-pathogen interactions, and effector proteins contributing to disease. His work addresses critical biosecurity risks to food security. Notable awards include the ARC Future Fellowship in 2011 and the College of Science Dean's Commendation for Excellence in Supervision in 2022. Key publications encompass 'A thousand-genome panel retraces the global spread and adaptation of a major fungal crop pathogen' (Nature Communications, 2023), 'Transcriptomics-Driven Discovery of New Meroterpenoid Rhynchospenes Involved in the Virulence of the Barley Pathogen Rhynchosporium commune' (ACS Chemical Biology, 2025), 'Phytopathogen emergence in the genomics era' (Trends in Plant Science, 2015), 'The Necrotrophic Pathogen Parastagonospora nodorum Is a Master Manipulator of Wheat Defense' (Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, 2023), and 'Repeat-Induced Point Mutation: A Fungal-Specific, Endogenous Mutagenesis Process' (2015). With over 100 peer-reviewed articles, his contributions influence pathogen management and genomic studies in plant pathology.