Frank F.White

Frank White is full professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at Kansas State University (KSU). White was born and raised in the tri-cities area and the town of Walla Walla in Washington State. Brief stints followed in Lincoln, NE; Milwaukee, WI; and Washington, DC. Always interested in biology, his professional career began in earnest after enrollment in the Biocore course series at the University of Wisconsin (UW) in 1971. The series featured presentations by illustrious and entertaining biologists and was largely taught from handouts and lecture notes, with the exception of James D. Watson’s “The molecular biology of the gene.” The enthusiasm of the instructors was only matched by the students’, who were admonished not to call the author regarding questions about the text material used in the course. During that time, White met the irrepressible Paul Williams, who provided White with his first profession experience involving screening the world collection of cabbage seeds for infection by Phoma lingam. This experience was followed by assistance from another Biocore instructor, John Kemp, in whose lab White initiated a project on the newly emerging interest in the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium.

White has since been involved in experimental research, graduating from UW with a B.S. degree in molecular biology with honors in 1974. White moved the same year to Seattle, WA, to pursue research in the laboratory of Eugene Nester, where, after a year of technical assistance to Tom Currier, he obtained a predoctoral NSF fellowship to attend graduate school and was accepted into the graduate program in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 1975.

He received his Ph.D. degree in 1981. He continued his work at Seattle under the direction of Nester and Milton Gordon until 1985, when he joined the Department of Plant Pathology at KSU. White conducted his graduate studies on the genetics of the large root inducing (Ri) plasmids of Agrobacterium rhizogenes in hairy root disease, identifying the curious suite of genes, the so-called rol loci (rolA, B, C and D), which are transferred to host cells in the now familiar T-DNA paradigm. He demonstrated that, unlike the T-DNA, Ri plasmid genes were already present a species of Nicotiana that had apparently already suffered a natural T-DNA transfer event. The finding was one of the earliest and best-documented cases of natural prokaryotic/eukaryotic horizontal transfer of DNA. At KSU, White began research into the molecular basis of bacterial blight disease of rice and the genetic analysis of the causal agent, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae as a collaborative effort with Jan Leach of the same department. Their group discovered a large family of type III effector genes and further demonstrated the critical contributions of the AvrBs3-related genes to both virulence and avirulence in bacterial blight. White’s group also discovered the presence of plant-inducible harpin-like genes in Xanthomonas, delineated an acidic activation domain and the DNA binding capacity of the AvrBs3-related effectors, and, in collaboration with Zhong Chao Yin of the National University of Singapore, demonstrated in 2005 that major R gene-mediated resistance is the result of type III effector-specific host gene induction. Subsequently, his group demonstrated, in 2006, that the critical contribution to virulence is the also result of type III effector-controlled induction of the host gene Os8N3, demonstrating that the host and pathogen exploit the ability of the effectors to direct host expression. White and collaborators have subsequently identified a series of host genes that condition susceptibility in the host in a gene-for-gene manner and natural recessive mutations that alter type III effector function and provide effective resistance. Research continues into the basis of plant susceptibility and resistance and type II effector-mediated host gene expression. Molecular markers associated with useful R genes, harpin-like genes, and Agrobacterium strains from White’s research continued to have potential for crop improvement.

White has coauthored 10 reviews and 46 original referred articles, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), Nature, MPMI, The Journal of Bacteriology, Cell, The Plant Cell, Plant Physiology, and Molecular Plant Pathology. He has served in a variety of capacities for the society, serving as senior and associate editor for bacteriology of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. He has organized three symposia for APS and is a long-standing member of the Bacteriology Committee. White has served as ad hoc reviewer for many journals and has served on grant review panels for NSF and USDA and has provided ad hoc reviews for many organizations at the state, national, and international levels. He has taught a variety of graduate-level courses, including Molecular Approaches to Plant Pathology, Plant Bacteriology, and Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. He has served as the major professor for graduate students, served on numerous university committees, and participated in a variety of outreach programs, including lectures to high school biology teachers and hosting summer undergraduate research participants. White has been the recipient of approximately $8 million in competitive research support in various forms over his career at KSU from NSF, NSF-Plant Genome, USDA, KSU, and state funding agencies.