How plants and their fruit survive in a hostile world are the focus of Prof. Fluhr’s research. One of his lab’s projects involves the life strategy of a tomato fruit pathogen and how it interacts with an array of natural fruit defences. He found that a fungus survives by invading fruit at early unripe stages and bides its time,waiting for the fruit’s natural defensive chemicals to disappear. In another project, he recently unraveled a molecular control switch for programmed cell death in plants. Local cell death can help stymie the spread of disease, and the cell accomplishes this by activating enzymes called proteases, which chop up essential proteins and thus program the cell to die. His team found a molecule that traps these enzymes, functioning like a molecular mouse trap, latching onto a specific protease and inactivating it when the destruction must be slowed down. Understanding these phenomena is highly relevant to enhancing crop protection.