Sophien Kamoun

Prof. Sophien Kamoun joined The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2007 and served as Head of Laboratory in 2009-2014. Dr. Kamoun received his B.S. degree from Pierre and Marie Curie University, and his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California at Davis in 1991. He then was a postdoctoral fellow at the NSF Center for Engineering Plants for Resistance Against Pathogens, UC Davis, and at the Department of Phytopathology, Wageningen University, Netherlands. From 1998-2007, Dr. Kamoun carried out research on oomycete molecular genetics on the faculty at the Ohio State University, Department of Plant Pathology, Wooster campus. At the Sainsbury Laboratory, Dr. Kamoun continues to exploit genomics resources to improve understanding of plant pathosystems, unravel novel processes and concepts in plant-microbe interactions, and devise original disease management strategies based on the gained knowledge. Throughout his career, Dr. Kamoun made a number of significant contributions to the science of molecular plant pathology. Dr. Kamoun pioneered genomics and molecular biology methods to reveal fundamental insights into the biology of eukaryotic plant pathogens. He discovered several effector families from pathogenic oomycetes and fungi, and showed how they can suppress plant immunity. He demonstrated how antagonistic coevolution with host plants accelerates evolution of effector genes and emergence of new virulent pathogens. His pioneering work in plant pathology has resulted in new approaches to control of some of the world’s most serious crop diseases. Dr. Kamoun is a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher (2014-2017). He received several awards, notably the American Phytopathological Society Syngenta Award in 2003, the Ohio State University Pomerene Teaching Award in 2004, the WE. Krauss Award in 2006, the Daiwa Adrian Prize in 2010, and the APS Noel Keen Award in 2013. Recently, he was recognized by award of the Kuwait Prize 2017 in recognition of his international leadership in pathology research and development of disease-resistant crop species. He was elected to Academia Europaea in 2011, EMBO in 2015, and has won successive European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator grants in 2011 and 2017.