Assistant Professor of Chemistry Max Majireck is part of a group that was recently awarded a New Academic Working Group Seed Grant from the New York Six (NY6) Liberal Arts Consortium. Majireck will work with Rajinikanth Mohan of Colgate University (formerly of Hamilton) and Erin Pelkey of Hobart and William Smith Colleges on a project titled “Interdisciplinary Chemical Biology Approach for the Identification of Novel Compounds Promoting Plant Disease Resistance.”
The goal of the project, which will take place over the 2017-18 academic year, is to utilize an assay developed by Mohan to identify compounds synthesized by the Majireck and Pelkey labs that can stimulate plant immunity toward the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae.
Majireck said that plant diseases related to infectious agents are responsible for about $100 billion in economic losses worldwide. He and his co-investigators, along with student researchers from each institution, hope that their studies will illuminate the role of plant immunity in warding off damaging infectious diseases.
