Associate Professor, School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, since 2012 Habilitation: Cell biology, Phytopathology, 2011 Research group leader, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 2006 - 2012 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Washington State University, 2004 - 2005 PhD, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 2003

One of the most demanding global challenges is how to feed a steadily increasing world population. Our current ability to provide food for a global population of 7 billion people will soon be inadequate. Among the main reasons for food shortages are: an imperfect distribution of food; the shortcomings of resources such as energy, water, fertilizers; as well as the lack of crop varieties adapted to changing environmental conditions and the continuous loss of arable land. The occurrence of famines, malnutrition, and rural exodus in developing countries will further increase in the future as we approach a global population of 9 billion people by 2050. We therefore urgently need to develop sustainable strategies that guarantee an adequate global food supply

Plants provide a high nutritional value as human food and animal forage with low carbon emissions, water use and energy costs that can be utilized as a sustainable solution to the food shortage. Roots, "the hidden half" of plants, play an important role in nutrient uptake, above ground plant growth and plant health, whose potential for crop productivity is not fully utilised. In fact, soil induced salt and drought stress together with root diseases are the causes of the most devastating and mostly uncontrollable losses of crop production.

Plants profit significantly from their interactions with beneficial root microbes. In my group, we study mutualistic symbioses of plants and crops with sebacinalean fungi to identify stress adaptive pathways activated by these mutualistic fungi in plants. By using state-of-the-art molecular, systems and synthetic biological techniques we aim at understanding the regulatory networks activated by mutualistic fungi and how we can exploit them to enhance root stress resistance. Therefore our research is focused on:

Stress-adaptive regulatory networks reprogrammed by mutualists in planta Effector phenomics as resource to engineer root stress resistance Cell type-specificity in the organisation and regulation of stress signalling in roots The antagonism between plant growth and stress resistance

Lareen, Andrew, Burton, Frances, Schäfer, Patrick. 2016. Plant root-microbe communication in shaping root microbiomes. Plant Molecular Biology, 90 (6), pp. 575-587, View Eichmann, Ruth, Schäfer, Patrick. 2015. Growth versus immunity : a redirection of the cell cycle?. Current opinion in plant biology, 26, pp. 106-112, View Reitz, M. U., Gifford, Miriam L., Schäfer, Patrick. 2015. Hormone activities and the cell cycle machinery in immunity-triggered growth inhibition. Journal of Experimental Botany, 66 (8), pp. 2187-2197, View Patron, Nicola J., Orzaez, Diego, Marillonnet, Sylvestre, Warzecha, Heribert, Matthewman, Colette, Youles, Mark, Raitskin, Oleg, Leveau, Aymeric, Farré, Gemma, Rogers, Christian, Smith, Alison, Hibberd, Julian, Webb, Alex A. R., Locke, James, Schornack, Sebastian, Ajioka, Jim, Baulcombe, David C., Zipfel, Cyril, Kamoun, Sophien, Jones, Jonathan D. G., Kuhn, Hannah, Robatzek, Silke, Esse, H. Peter van, Sanders, Dale, Oldroyd, Giles, Martin, Cathie, Field, Rob, O'Connor, Sarah, Fox, Samantha, Wulff, Brande, Miller, Ben, Breakspear, Andy, Radhakrishnan, Guru, Delaux, Pierre-Marc, Loqué, Dominique, Granell, Antonio, Tissier, Alain, Shih, Patrick, Brutnell, Thomas P., Quick, W. Paul, Rischer, Heiko, Fraser, Paul D., Aharoni, Asaph, Raines, Christine, South, Paul F., Ané, Jean-Michel, Hamberger, Björn R., Langdale, Jane, Stougaard, Jens, Bouwmeester, Harro, Udvardi, Michael, Murray, James A. H., Ntoukakis, Vardis, Schäfer, Patrick, Denby, Katherine J., Edwards, Keith J., Osbourn, Anne, Haseloff, Jim. 2015. Standards for plant synthetic biology : a common syntax for exchange of DNA parts. New Phytologist, 208 (1), pp. 13-19, View Lagunas, B., Schäfer, Patrick, Gifford, Miriam L.. 2015. Housing helpful invaders : the evolutionary and molecular architecture underlying plant root-mutualist microbe interactions. Journal of Experimental Botany, 66 (8), pp. 2177-2186, View Brandizzi, Federica, Frigerio, Lorenzo, Howell, Stephen H., Schäfer, Patrick. 2014. Endoplasmic reticulum : shape and function in stress translation. Frontiers in Plant Science, Volume 5, pp. 1-2, View