An Irish editor is to take over at a leading European research journal, reports Dick Ahlstrom
A University College Dublin scientist has become editor-in-chief of a leading European research journal. A specialist in cereal diseases, Prof Mike Cooke, was officially appointed editor of the European Journal of Plant Pathology at a meeting last week in Aberdeen.
"It is one of the world's leading journals so it is quite an honour for me and UCD," says Cooke, of UCD's Department of Environmental Resource Management in the Faculty of Agrifood and Environment. "It deals with fundamental and applied aspects of plant pathology. All articles are subject to international peer review."
Cooke actually assumed the editor's role back in June but his position was formally announced last week at an international meeting of the European Foundation for Plant Pathology and the British Society for Plant Pathology.
The journal is owned by the Royal Netherlands Society for Plant Pathology (KVPV) and is published in the Netherlands by Kluwer Academic Publishers, now merged with German academic publisher Springer. Cooke has already had an impact at the journal, initiating monthly publication and aligning it exclusively with research.
"It is a plant pathology research journal and it covers a very broad range of subjects. I have made it more a research [rather than news and information] journal," he says.
Cooke was nominated as editor by the European Foundation and his own international reputation for research helped win KVPV approval.
"You have to have a strong international profile," he says. "It takes in papers from all over the world, including the States."
Serving as editor-in-chief is eating into his research and academic activities at UCD, he admits, but the college is happy for him to serve in this capacity. He does have back-up, however, with five Kluwer staff involved in the journal at its publishing base in Dordrecht, Netherlands.
Cooke is a specialist in cereal pathology, an area of particular importance to Irish agriculture. Our climatic conditions favour the growth of rusts and fungus diseases that can lower yields and also pose a risk to human health.
He specialises in fusarium, a fungus that can produce highly poisonous "mycotoxins" if it grows on crops.
"Ireland is a candidate for this problem, particularly wheat," he says. He developed a promising method for reducing fusarium infection by inoculating wheat with fungus as a way to boost the plant's own immune system.
His other main area of research is sustainable crop protection in a "low-input" farming environment. The goal here is to find ways to protect plants without resorting to heavy use of chemicals. Cooke serves as the Irish delegate on an EU research initiative trying to develop new sustainable crop varieties that do not require high inputs.
Cooke's initial contract as editor is for five years, with subsequent renewals every two years after that.
For further information on the Foundation and the journal, see www.efpp.net and www.kluweronline.nl