Sanushka Naidoo is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research programme Eucalyptus, Pine and Pathogen Interactions within the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), is dedicated to plant defense in forest tree species. Prof Sanushka is focusing on mechanisms that can confer broad-spectrum, long lasting resistance by dissecting gene families and responses to pests and pathogens in forest trees. She has adopted genomics, transcriptomics, quantitative genetics and genome editing technology to achieve the latter goal.

The research programme has ongoing projects that investigate specific pathosystems between Eucalyptus and an insect pest, Eucalyptus and a stem canker pathogen and between Pine and the fungal pathogen, Fusarium circinatum. These pathosystems provide the biological platform to address key questions such as: 1. What is the molecular basis of tolerance and susceptibility? 2. What are the signature defence responses to different types of pests and pathogens? 3. What are the convergent defence responses in the host? and 4. Which regulatory sequences and defence genes could be selected for enhancing defence in Eucalyptus or pine?

Among the programmes notable achievements of the group has been a SA patent for markers for resistance to an insect pest in Eucalyptus grandis, and a contribution to the development of the Pitro50K SNP chip. With the advent of genomic selection, machine learning models, coupled with deep knowledge of pathosystems, Prof. Naidoo believes we are better equipped to achieve superior crops to mitigate some of the consequences of global climate change.