APSnet Feature: Art in Phytopathology

Image Slide Show

APS News Releases

Previous APSnet Features

Interested in contributing an
APSnet Feature?
Have a comment?

Please contact APSnet
Feature Editor
Dr. Monica L. Elliott

Feature Story November 2004

Art in

Phytopathology

Aruna Kilaru

University of Louisiana-Lafayette

The four images I presented at the meeting were fortuitous observations and interpretations of my research work. Two of the images are scanning electron micrographs of the leaf surface of Theobroma cacao (the chocolate tree). The structures seen in the image "Spider Walk" are trichomes and the structures in "Thinker" are stomata. The other two photographs I presented are digital images and were the result of contamination during my attempt to grow the pathogen I work with, Crinipellis perniciosa (white colony on the image "Line of Control").

I earned my bachelor’s degree in Biology and Chemistry from Andhra University and master’s degree in biotechnology from MS University, in India. Currently, as a doctoral student, I am studying host-pathogen interaction in witches’ broom disease of cacao. I am quite intrigued and fascinated as to how plants communicate. I intend to study recognition and response mechanisms in plants as a postdoctoral fellow and subsequently as a faculty. Besides research I enjoy teaching and reading books and time with my daughter Rachana.

click image

American Phytopathological Society
3340 Pilot Knob Road
St. Paul, MN 55121-2097
e-mail: aps@scisoc.org