David Cook, PhD

Associate Professor, University Outstanding Scholar
Molecular plant-microbe interactions

4004 Throckmorton PSC
1712 Claflin Road
Manhattan, KS 66506

Ph: 785-532-1362

Biography

Dr. David E. Cook grew up in outside of Columbus, Ohio. He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Virginia Tech in the Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences department. Dr. Cook received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Plant Pathology department. His graduate research focused on functional genomics in soybean for the locus conferring resistance to the major soybean cyst nematode pest. Dr. Cook moved to the Netherlands to conduct postgraduate research at Wageningen University in the Laboratory of Phytopathology, working on epigenetics and genome evolution in fungal plant pathogens. Dr. Cook's graduate studies were funded in part by a Graduate Student Fellowship from the American Phytopathological Society (APS), and his postdoctoral research was funded by fellowships from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and Human Frontiers in Science Program (HFSP).

Education

• Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013
• M.S. Virginia Tech, 2008
• B.S. Virginia Tech, 2005

Research

The Cook lab at K-State is focused on understanding genome regulation and evolution in fungal plant pathogens. We investigate how chemical and physical information in the genome coordinate transcription during infection, and how fungal genomes change over short and long periods of time. We are also actively involved in a number of projects to develop new molecular tools and computational approaches to aid crop development. Research projects in the Cook lab have been funded by the United State Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.