Gary Lyon first became interested in plant pathology during his first degree in Agricultural Botany at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. He continued his education at Imperial College firstly by studying for an MSc in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry and then a PhD in Plant Pathology supervised by Brian Deverall looking at phytoalexins in Phaseolus vulgaris.

Gary continued with a Post-doctoral Fellowship funded by the Potato Marketing Board to look at the response of potatoes to soft rot Erwinia spp. under the supervision of Barbara Lund at the Food Research Institute, Norwich. In 1975 Gary obtained a permanent post at the Scottish Horticultural Research Institute, Invergowrie where he continued to study the biochemical response of potato to Erwinia spp. The Institute name was later changed to the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) where he continues to work. In 1979 he took a one year sabbatical to work on resistance elicitors with Professor Peter Albersheim at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. During this sabbatical he showed that pectic enzymes produced by Erwinia spp. were able to release elicitor-active carbohydrates from plant cell walls resulting in the accumulation of phytoalexins. This interest in resistance elicitors has continued with collaborative work with Adrian Newton at SCRI to look at the practical exploitation of induced resistance. He is currently editing a book with Adrian and Dale Walters on “Induced resistance for plant defence: a sustainable approach to crop protection”.

Some years ago Gary drew the first version of the “Metabolic pathways of the diseased potato” which he regularly up-dates and is available as a PDF file on the internet. Gary was also a key figure in setting up the open access DRASTIC web site at www.drastic.org.uk which is linked to a gene expression database of plant genes responsive to biotic and abiotic stress. This he hopes will be a useful resource to others in plant pathology who are also interested in unravelling plant signal transduction pathways. During 2006 Gary will begin a desk study on the potential impact of climate change on potato diseases in Scotland.

Gary is currently the Postgraduate Student Liaison Officer at SCRI and is the Education Officer for BSPP. He is a Founder member of BSPP.

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