Role University Professor | Name Raymond Leger Nationality England | |
 | ||
Institutions CornellUniversity of Maryland Alma mater Exeter UniversityUniversity of Bath Doctoral advisor Professors Keith Charnley and Richard Cooper Education University of Exeter, University of Bath | ||
Professor Raymond St Leger
Raymond J. St. Leger (born 1957, in London, England) is an American mycologist, entomologist and molecular biologist who currently holds the rank of Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is an advocate of online open education and since 2013 has co-taught with Dr. Tammatha O’Brien a massive open online Coursera course called Genes and the Human Condition. St. Leger has published more than 150 scientific papers and book chapters on fungal pathogens of plants, animals and insects, and on the reactions of hosts to infection. St. Leger has principally used entomopathogenic fungus (fungi that act as parasites of insects), as models for understanding how pathogens in general respond to changing environments, initiate host invasion, colonize tissues, and counter host immune responses. These investigations have also addressed the mechanisms by which new pathogens emerge with different host ranges. St. Leger is leading a project to sequence multiple pathogens in collaboration with The Genome Institute (Washington University School of Medicine) and the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. Their intent is to create highly accurate genome sequences in order to identify small genetic differences that can lead to the evolution of new pathogens. Other interests include fungal and insect behavior and evolution, molecular biology of fungi, pest control and mutualistic associations between microbes and plants that can be exploited to benefit agriculture.
Contents
St. Leger's most controversial work has involved altering insect pathogens so that they carry genes encoding spider and scorpion toxins. These engineered pathogens have the potential to control insect borne diseases such as malaria, and insect pests of agricultural importance. Although this avenue of work has been praised in many quarters, it was also suggested that it may be so emotive outside of science as to foster acute anxiety in the wider world (Bernard Dixon, Editorial comment in Microbe, Vol. 3 page 216, 2008). Another approach, which has been less controversial, is to engineer the fungus to carry a gene for a human anti-malarial antibody so that the fungus targets the malarial parasite in the mosquito. The fungus does not kill mosquitoes until they are old, so natural selection would not act against infected mosquitoes.
St. Leger received his Bachelor of Science in biology from Exeter University, in the United Kingdom in 1978, a Master of Science in entomology in 1980 from Birkbeck College London University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1985 in crop protection from the University of Bath, near Bath, England.
St. Leger has been a consultant on biotechnology to many private and public concerns, including the USDA, the NSF, the US State Department and the Organization of American States. St. Leger has also served on many national and international policy-making committees including the Bill Gates funded National Academies Committee to study technologies to benefit SubSaharan Africa and South Asia (2007).
Awards and honors
St. Leger is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology and the Royal Entomological Society of London. He received the American Society for Microbiology Promega Biotechnology Research Award and was the inaugural recipient of the Tai Fung-Lan Award for International Cooperation from The Mycological Society of China. St. Leger gave the Founders lecture at the 2009 Society of Invertebrate Pathology Meeting.
Representative recent Publications
Fang W, Vega-Rodriguez, J., Ghosh, A.K., Jacobs-Lorena, M., Khang, A and St. Leger, R.J., 2011. Development of transgenic fungi that kill human malaria parasites in mosquitoes. Science 331: 1074-1077.
Wang, S., Fang, W., Wang, C. and St. Leger, R.J. 2011. Insertion of an esterase gene into a specific locust pathogen (Metarhizium acridum) enables it to infect caterpillars. PLoS Pathog 7(6): e1002097. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1002097
Wang, S. O’Brien, T., Pava-Ripoll, M and St. Leger, R.J. 2011 Local adaptation of an introduced transgenic insect fungal pathogen due to new beneficial mutations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108: 20449-20454.
Fang W, St. Leger RJ (2012) Enhanced UV Resistance and Improved Killing of Malaria Mosquitoes by Photolyase Transgenic Entomopathogenic Fungi. PLoS ONE 7(8): e43069. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043069
Liao X, Fang W, Lin L, Lu H-L, St. Leger RJ (2013) Metarhizium robertsii produces an Extracellular Invertase (MrINV) That Plays a Pivotal Role in Rhizospheric Interactions and Root Colonization. PLoS ONE 8(10): e78118. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0078118
Liao X, O’Brien T, Fang W, St. Leger R.J. 2014. The plant beneficial effects of Metarhizium species correlate with their association with roots. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology doi:10.1007/s00253-014-5788-2
Zhao H., Xu C., Lu HL., Chen X., St. Leger R.J., Fang W. 2014. Host-to-pathogen gene transfer facilitated infection of insects by a pathogenic fungus. PLOS Pathogens. 10 (4): e10040.
Hu X, Xiao G, Zheng P, Shang Y, Su Y, Zhang X, Liu X, Zhan S, St Leger RJ, Wang C. 2014. Trajectory and genomic determinants of fungal-pathogen speciation and host adaptation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. doi:10.1073/pnas.1412662111
Fang, W, Lu, H-L, King G.F. and St. Leger, R.J. 2014. Construction of a hypervirulent and specific mycoinsecticide for locust control. Scientific Reports. 4 DOI: 1038/srep07345
Lu, H. L., Wang, J. B., Brown, M. A., Euerle, C., & St. Leger, R. J. (2015). Identification of Drosophila Mutants Affecting Defense to an Entomopathogenic Fungus. Scientific Reports, 5. doi:10.1038/srep12350
Wang, J.B., Lu, H.L. and St. Leger, R.J. 2017. The genetic basis for variation in resistance to infection in the Drosophila melanogaster genetic reference panel. PLoS pathogens, 13(3), p.e1006260.
Bilgo, E., Lovett, B., Fang, W., Bende, N., King, G.F., Diabate, A. and St. Leger, R.J. 2017. Improved efficacy of an arthropod toxin expressing fungus against insecticide-resistant malaria-vector mosquitoes. Scientific Reports, 7(1), p.3433.