13.05.2026

New Emmy Noether research group on fungal infections in plants

Biologist Juan Carlos de la Concepción is raising funds to establish his own working group

The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is a devastating pathogen found in numerous countries around the world. It is estimated that annually, this pathogen destroys a vast amount of rice that could otherwise feed approximately 60 million people. M. oryzae infects not only rice but also many other cereal crops and grasses, causing disease outbreaks and pandemics around the globe. To learn more about this dangerous and economically important plant disease, Dr. Juan Carlos De la Concepción is employing a novel method to understand how the fungus invades the plant at the molecular level. This can potentially lead to effective and sustainable ways of combatting the fungus.

De la Concepción joined the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP) at the University of Tübingen at the beginning of the year with funding from the German Research Foundation's Emmy Noether Program. He will receive more than €1.8 million for his project over a period of six years. Under the project title "Cellular and structural mechanisms of plant invasion by fungal pathogens," De la Concepción will be able to establish his own working group with two doctoral positions and one postdoctoral position. The Emmy Noether Program enables outstanding scientists in an early career phase to qualify for a university professorship through the independent management of a research working group.

Complex processes for analysis

“The rice blast fungus has jumped from rice to other crops such as wheat and is spread through many countries. This pandemic is a huge problem, especially in developing countries” says De la Concepción. During infection, the fungi develop a special cell called an appressorium. This allows the fungus to attach itself to the plant's surface and to generate enormous amount of turgor pressure – up to 80 bar or 40 times the internal pressure of a car tire. This pressure is harnessed by the fungus to breach the cell wall and penetrate the plant cell to establish infection.

To observe this process with unprecedented detail, De la Concepción is using cryogenic electron tomography (cryo-ET), a fast-developing technique in the field of structural biology. This imaging technique, not yet widely adopted in plant research, involves freezing the sample at very low temperatures and examining it using an electron microscope. "The advantage is that the cell structures are completely preserved and we can resolve protein structures" explains De la Concepción. "With most other methods, you have to isolate the molecular complexes to examine their structure, and the bigger picture is lost in the process." The result from his research will be broadly applicable, he says. "Multiple fungal pathogens form appressoria to invade their host. My hope is that the results can also be applied to mitigate multiple plant diseases."

Long association with Tübingen

De la Concepción has been in contact with the ZMBP in Tübingen for a long time; he points out that it is one of Germany's top institutions in plant research. "Here, I can use the excellent technical infrastructure and, in return, introduce cryo-ET as a new method in the ZMBP. Both sides benefit from this." Furthermore, his work depends heavily on good collaboration – and here, too, the ZMBP offers a dynamic research environment as part of Collaborative Research Centers and Clusters of Excellence.

Juan Carlos De la Concepción studied biology, biochemistry, and biotechnology at the University of Seville in Spain and received his PhD from the University of East Anglia in Norwich in 2020. As a postdoctoral researcher, he continued his studies in Norwich at the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory until 2021, before moving to the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) in Vienna from March 2021 to December 2025. At the beginning of 2026, he joined the Center for Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Tübingen with an Emmy Noether grant.

Janna Eberhardt/Public Relations Department

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