Lab member
2026-present
Education
2025 Ph.D. in Microbiology with Designated Emphasis in Computational and Genomic Biology, University of California, Berkeley
2017 B.S. in Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley
Research Topic
Structure-based elucidation of pathogen effector evolution and plant immune receptor engineering
Research Summary
My research integrates structural biology, evolutionary genomics, and machine learning to understand how pathogen effectors evolve and how plant immune receptors recognize rapidly diversifying threats. I develop large-scale effector and NLR receptor atlases using comparative genomics and protein structure prediction, and apply these insights to identify conserved molecular interfaces and recognition principles. Leveraging protein language models and structure-guided design, I aim to rationally engineer immune receptors with expanded or programmable recognition capacity, enabling predictive and durable disease resistance in crops.
Key Publications
Seong K, Kumar R, Prigozhin D, Lunde C, Cherubino Ribeiro CH, Bélanger H, Hsieh JWA, Tang M, Meyers BC, Krasileva KV. (2025) The Annotated Blueprint: Integrated Functional Genomic Resources for a Model Tetraploid Wheat Triticum turgidum cv. Kronos. bioRxiv .
Seong K, Wei W, Sent SC, Vega B, Dee A, Ramirez-Bernardino G, Kumar R, Parra L, Saur IM, Krasileva KV. (2025) Resurrection of the Plant Immune Receptor Sr50 to Overcome Pathogen Immune Evasion. bioRxiv.
Seong K, Krasileva KV. (2023) Prediction of effector protein structures from fungal phytopathogens enables evolutionary analyses. Nature Microbiology.
Seong K, Krasileva KV. (2021) Computational structural genomics unravels common folds and novel families in the secretome of fungal phytopathogen Magnaporthe oryzae. MPMI.
Liu B, Seong K, Pang S, Song J, Gao H, Wang C, Zhai J, Zhang Y, Gao S, Li X, Qi T, Song S. (2021) Functional specificity, diversity, and redundancy of Arabidopsis JAZ family repressors in jasmonate and COI1‐regulated growth, development, and defense. New Phytologist.
Seong K, Seo E, Witek K, Li M, Staskawicz B. (2020) Evolution of NLR resistance genes with noncanonical N‐terminal domains in wild tomato species. New Phytologist.
