Peter Solomon and his team discovered that a
wheat disease developped as a result of a fungal
gene transfer over 60 years ago.

Sometime prior to 1940 a fungus, Stagonospora nodorum, transferred a single gene to non-pathogenic fungus, creating a new disease which now costs farmers around the world millions of dollars yearly.

Senior Lecturer Dr Peter Solomon and Professor Richard Oliver, who work within the Murdoch University Australian Centre for Necrotrophic Fungal Pathogens, are investigating how Stagonospora nodorum is able to cause widespread disease in wheat.

Dr Solomon and Professor Oliver, with colleagues in the US and Switzerland, have published their findings in Nature Genetics.

“Gene transfer (horizontal gene transfer) was widely speculated for many years, but up until now, the data has been weak,” Dr Solomon said.

“Our study has for the first time presented strong evidence that genes are able to pass from one species to another.”

Dr Solomon said their work would have relevance throughout the world in light of the new emerging diseases and infections in humans being linked to contact with animals in the past decade.