The art and design of harmony in arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis of cereals

Uta Paszkowski is the head of cereal symbiosis reearch group at the University of Cambridge. Research focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying the formation and functioning of AM symbioses in rice and maize. It aims at developing knowledge to optimize the incorporation of the AM-symbiosis into sustainable yet modern agricultural practices. 

The mutually beneficial arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis is the most widespread association between roots of terrestrial plants and fungi of the Glomeromycota. The association receives increasing scientific attention because of the nutritional benefit it confers to plants, its ubiquitous occurrence among contemporary plant species and, as a result of its evolutionary antiquity, an ancestral relationship to other plant interactions.