1991 Upper Buford Circle
St. Paul, MN 55108
United States
Biography
Biography
My research focuses on understanding and improving genetic resistance to plant diseases in cereal crops, particularly barley and wheat. I aim to identify and characterize novel resistance genes from wild relatives to combat rust pathogens, which are among the most damaging diseases globally. In collaboration with plant breeders, I screen wheat and barley breeding materials for multiple diseases to support the development of cultivars with durable resistance. I also investigate resistance mechanisms in genetically modified wheat and barley carrying single or multi-cassette genes against rust pathogens under both greenhouse and field conditions. Additionally, I am developing a pangenome for stem rust and leaf rust pathogens to uncover and characterize avirulence (Avr) effectors, advancing our understanding of host–pathogen interactions. Through this work, I seek to integrate molecular genetics, genomics, and applied breeding to develop sustainable solutions for disease management and contribute to global food security.
Recent publications for 2025
Oadi Matny, Michael D. Miller, and Brian J. Steffenson. 2025. Hordeum jubatum: An alternative host for fungal pathogens attacking cultivated barley. Plant Dis. 109:1966-1975. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-03-25-0472-RE
Brabham, H.J., Hernández-Pinzón, I., Yanagihara, C. Ishikawa, N., Komori, T., Matny, N.M., Hubbard, A., Witek, K., Feist, A., Numazawa, H., Green, P., Dreiseitl, A., Takemori, N., Komari, T., Freedman, R.P., Steffenson, B., van Esse, H.P, Moscou, M. J. 2025. Discovery of functional NLRs using expression
level, high-throughput transformation and large-scale phenotyping. Nat. Plants . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-025-02110-w
Page, R., Sallam, A. H., Szinyei, T., Matny, O., Wodarek, J., & Steffenson, B. J. 2025. Genome-wide association mapping of resistance to Fusarium head blight and deoxynivalenol accumulation and haplotype analysis in a diverse barley collection. Crop Science, 65, e70119. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70119
Page, R., Sallam, A. H., Szinyei, T., Matny, O., Wodarek, J., & Steffenson, B.
2025. Evaluation of select spring barley accessions for resistance to Fusarium head blight and deoxynivalenol accumulation. Crop Science, 65, e70095. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70095
Renjie Chen, Jian Chen, Oliver R. Powell, Megan A. Outram, Taj Arndell, Karthick Gajendiran, Yan L. Wang, Jibril Lubega, Yang Xu, Michael A. Ayliffe, Cheryl Blundell, Melania Figueroa, Jana Sperschneider, Thomas Vanhercke, Kostya Kanyuka, Dingzhong Tang, Guitao Zhong, Catherine
Gardener, Guotai Yu, Spyridon Gourdoupis, Łukasz Jaremko, Oadi Matny, Brian J. Steffenson, Willem H. P. Boshoff, Wilku B. Meyer, Stefan T. Arold, Peter N. Dodds, Brande B. H. Wulff. 2025, A wheat tandem kinase activates an NLR to trigger immunity. Science 387,1402-1408 (2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adp5034
Ahmad H. Sallam, Yu Guo, Murukarthick Jayakodi, Axel Himmelbach, Anne Fiebig, Jamie Simmons, Gerit Bethke, Yoonjung Lee, Rebecca Spanner, Ana Badea, Michael Baum, François Belzile, Roi Ben-David, Robert Brueggeman, Austin Case, Luigi Cattivelli, Michael Davis, Christoph Dockter, Jaroslav
Doležel, Antonin Dreiseitl, Ryan Gavin, Lior Glick, Stephan Greiner, Ruth Hamilton, Patrick M. Hayes, Scott Heisel, Cynthia Henson, Benjamin Kilian, Takao Komatsuda, Chengdao Li, Cheng Liu, Ramamurthy Mahalingam, Maren Maruschewski, Oadi Matny, Andreas Maurer, Klaus F. X. Mayer, Itay
Mayrose, Peter Morrell, Matthew Moscou, Gary J. Muehlbauer, Youko Oono, Frank Ordon, Hakan Özkan, Ales Pecinka, Dragan Perovic, Klaus Pillen, Mohammad Pourkheirandish, Joanne Russell, Jan Šafář, Silvio Salvi, Miguel Sanchez-Garcia, Kazuhiro Sato, Thomas Schmutzer, Uwe Scholz, Jeness Scott, Gurcharn Singh Brar, Kevin P. Smith, Mark E. Sorrells, Manuel Spannagl, Nils Stein, Alessandro Tondelli, Roberto Tuberosa, James Tucker, Thomas Turkington, Jan Valkoun, Ramesh Pal Singh Verma, Marcus A. Vinje, Maria von Korff Schmising, Jason G. Walling, Robbie Waugh, Roger P. Wise, Brande B. H. Wulff, Shengming Yang, Guoping Zhang, Martin Mascher, Brian J. Steffenson. 2025. Whole-Genome Sequencing of the Wild Barley Diversity Collection: A Resource for Identifying and Exploiting Genetic Variation for Cultivated Barley Improvement. Accepted in G3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.18.624148