(CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Australia)

Dr Peter R Ryan is currently an honorary research fellow at the CSIRO Agriculture and Food, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and the recent past President of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists. He obtained his PhD in plant physiology at the University of Sydney and completed post-docs in Australia (University of Tasmania) and the United States (with Leon Kochian at the USDA and Cornell University) working on membrane transport and aluminium toxicity. Subsequent research at the CSIRO in Canberra attempted to improve crop production on acidic soils and nutrient-deficient soils by focusing on root function and the root-soil interface. A major target of Dr Ryan’s work was enhancing the tolerance of cereals to acidic soils and, together with Dr Delhaize and others in Australian, characterised the aluminium-resistance mechanisms in wheat and barley involving malate and citrate efflux. Ryan and Delhaize also collaborated with Dr Sasaki and Prof Matsumoto and others at Okayama University to identify and characterise the first aluminium-resistance gene in plants which controls malate release from the root tips of wheat. Dr Ryan’s later work began to focus on the interactions between root exudates and the root microbiome.”