Professor, Plant Science;
Associate Director, Center for Desert Agriculture
Current
Location:
B2/R3233
Research Interests
Mark Tester is Professor of Bioscience in the Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, Saudi Arabia. He started there on 17 February 2013 and is Associate Director of the Center for Desert Agriculture. Professor Tester leads a large academic research group. When in Australia, he was a Director of Australian Grains Technology and served on editorial boards of 11 international journals. He referees for many more, including Nature and Science.
He is currently seconded to NEOM, where he heads the Food Sector, developing the strategic plan for this sector and initiating its implementation. The Food Sector capex budget is in the order of USD5bn, and involves the establishment of an entire food system for NEOM, a hi-tech city of the future, with a population estimated to be 1m by 2030.
Mark also leads a research group in which forward and reverse genetic approaches are used to understand and manipulate traits that contribute to salinity tolerance and improve this in crops such as barley and tomatoes. An immediate applied aim is to modify crop plants in order to increase productivity on such soils, with consequent improvement of yield in both developed and developing countries. The ultimate intellectual aim is to understand the control and co-ordination of whole plant function through processes occurring at the level of single cells.
Selected Publications
Tyerman, S.D., Munns, R., Fricke, W., Arsova, B., Barkla, B., Bose, J., Bramley, H., Byrt, C., Chen, Z., Colmer, T., Cuin, T.A., Day, D., Foster, K., Gilliham, M., Henderson, S., Horie, T., Jenkins, C., Kaiser, B., Katsuhara, M., Plett, D., Miklavcic, S., Roy, S., Rubio, F., Shabala, S., Shelden, M., Soole, K., Taylor, N., Tester, M., Watt, M., Wege, S., Wegner, L., Wen, Z. (2019) Energy costs of salinity tolerance in crop plants. The 22nd New Phytologist Workshop ‘Energy costs of salinity tolerance in crop plants’ Adelaide, Australia, April 10-12th, 2018. New Phytologist 221: 25–29 https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.15555
Ward, B., Brien, C., Oakey, H., Pearson, A., Negrão, S., Schilling, R., Taylor, J., Jarvis, D., Timmins, A., Roy, S.J., Tester, M., Berger, B. & van den Hengel, A. (2019) High-throughput 3D imaging to dissect the genetic control of leaf elongation in barley. Plant Journal 98: 555-570 https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.14225 [corresponding author]
Morton, M.J.L., Awlia, M., Al-Tamimi, N., Saade, S., Pailles, Y., Negrão, S. & Tester, M. (2019) Salt stress under the scalpel – dissecting the genetics of salt tolerance. Plant Journal 97: 148-163. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.14189
Maughan, PJ, Chaney, L., Lightfoot, D.J., Cox, B.J., Tester, M., Jellen, E.N., Jarvis, D.E. (2019) Mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes provide insights into the evolutionary origins of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). Scientific Reports 9: 185, doi:10.1038/s41598-018-36693-6
Alqahtani, M, Roy, S.J. & Tester, M. (2019) Increasing salinity tolerance of crops. In: Meyers, R. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, 2nd edition, doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2493-6_429-3
Zaidi, S.S., Mahfouz, M.M., Kohli, A., Vanderschuren, H., Mansoor, S. & Tester, M (2019) New plant breeding technologies for food security. Science 363: 1390-1391
Al-shareef, N. & Tester, M. (2019) Plant salinity tolerance. In: Hetherington, A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Life Science, 3rd edition. Wiley, doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001300.pub3. http://www.els.net/WileyCDA/ElsArticle/refId-a0001300.html
Johansen, K., Morton, M.J.L., Malbeteau, Y., Solorio, B., Al-Mashharawi, S., Ziliani, M., Angellopez, Y., Fiene, G., Negrao, S., Mousa, M., Tester, M., McCabe, M.F. (2019) Unmanned aerial vehicle-based phenotyping using morphometric and spectral analysis can quantify responses of wild tomato plants to salinity stress. Frontiers in Plant Science 10: doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00370
Julkowska, M.M., Saade, S., Agarwal, G.,Gao, G., Pailles, Y., Morton, M., Awlia, M., Tester, M. (2019) MVApp – Multivariate analysis application for streamlined data analysis and curation. Plant Physiology 180:1261-1276 doi: 10.1104/pp.19.00235
Also published in 2018 at: https://figshare.com/articles/MVAPP_Multivariate_analysis_application_for_streamlined_data_analysis_and_curation/6291461
Wiegmann, M., Maurer, A., Pham, A., March, T.J., Al-Abdallat, A., Thomas, W.B.T., Shahid, M., Eglinton, J., Baum, M., Flavell, A.J., Tester M. & Pillen, K. (2019) Barley yield formation under abiotic stress depends on the interplay between flowering regulator genes and environmental cues. Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-42673-1. Also published in 2018 at: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/06/488080
Alshareef, N., Wang, J.Y., Ali, S., Al-Babili, S., Tester, M. & Schmöckel, S.M. (2019) Overexpression of the NAC transcription factor JUNGBRUNNEN1 (JUB1) increases salinity tolerance in tomato. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 140: 113–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plaphy.2019.04.038
Lefers, R., Davies, P., Fedoroff, N., Almadhoun, N., Tester, M. & Leiknes, T. (2019) Proof of concept: puzzolan rock bricks for evaporative cooling with salt water. Applied Engineering in Agriculture 34: 929-937. https://doi.org/10.13031/aea.13013
Hickey, L.T., Hafeez, A., Robinson, H., Jackson, S.A., Leal-Bertioli, S.C.M., Tester, M., Gao, C., Godwin, I.D., Hayes, B.J., Wulff, B.B.H. (2019) Speeding up breeding to meet the 10 billion challenge? Nature Biotechnology 37: 744–754 (invited review) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0152-9
Alshareef, N.O., Khoury, H., Tester, M. & Schmockel, S.M. (2019). Genome wide identification of NAC transcription factors and their role in abiotic stress tolerance in Chenopodium quinoa. bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/693093
Pailles, Y., Awlia, M., Julkowska, M., Passone, L., Zemmouri, K., Negrao, S., Schmöckel, S.M., Tester, M. (2019) Wide variation in responses to salinity in seedlings of Galapagos tomatoes. Plant Physiology, https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.19.00700
Also published in bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/642876
Agarwal, G., Saade, S., Shahid, M., Tester, M & Sun, Y. (2019) Quantile function modeling applied to analysis of salinity tolerance of plants. BMC Plant Biology 19 (1), 526
Education
PhD in Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, 1988.
BSc (Hons) in Plant Sciences, 1st Class, University of Adelaide, 1984.
Professional Profile
2019 – 2020 Head, Food Sector, NEOM, Saudi Arabia
2014 – 15 & 2019- Associate Director, Center for Desert Agriculture, KAUST
2013 – Professor of Bioscience, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, Saudi Arabia
2009 – 2013 Professor of Plant Physiology, Univ Adelaide and Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics
2004 – 2008 Research Professor, Australian Research Council Federation Fellow
2001 – 2003 BBSRC Research Development Fellow
2000 – 2003 Senior Lecturer, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge
1994 – 2003 Fellow, Churchill College Cambridge
1993 – 2000 Lecturer, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge
1990 – 1992 Lecturer, Department of Botany, University of Adelaide
1988 – 1990 Junior Research Fellow, Churchill College Cambridge
Scientific and Professional Membership
American Society of Plant Biologists
Society of Experimental Biology
Australian Society of Plant Scientists
Awards
2019 Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation, category Distinguished Innovative Studies and Modern Technology
Red Sea Farms won the Saudi Arabian Entrepreneurship World Cup
Red Sea Farms came third in the Entrepreneurship World Cup (global finals, out of >100,000 applicants)
2018-19 ISI highly cited researcher
2017 - Honorary Professor, University of Adelaide
2014-19 Honorary Professor, University of Dundee
2013 Dermot P Coyne Distinguished Lecturer, University of Nebraska
2010 American Society of Plant Biologists recognition for “publishing the most influential science” (one of 12 Australians and 45 internationally)
University of Adelaide Faculty of Science Award for Distinguished Contribution to Research over a sustained period
For The Plant Accelerator:
Australian Institute of Architects SA Chapter Keith Neighbour Prize for Best Commercial Building
Australian Institute of Architects SA Chapter Commendation for Environmentally Sustainable Building
Master Builders Association Commendation for excellence in commercial / industrial building $10-20 million
Australian Steel Institute SA Awards: Steel Clad Structures – Steel Design Award
2004 ARC Federation Fellowship
2001 BBSRC Research Development Fellowship
Fellow, Royal Society of Biology
1997 President’s Medal of the Society for Experimental Biology
1988 Glaxo Junior Research Fellowship, Churchill College, Cambridge
KAUST Affiliations
CDA - Center for Desert Agriculture
BESE - Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division
Non-KAUST Affiliations
Advisory Editorial Board Trends in Plant Science (2018-)
Associate editor Plant, Cell & Environment (2000-2012), Plant Signalling and Behaviour (2005-2011), Journal of Experimental Botany (2009-2012)
Editorial Board Frontiers in Plant Biotechnology (2011-), Frontiers in Plant Physiology (2010-), Molecular Plant (2007-2012), Rice (2007-2012), The Open Plant Science Journal (2008-2012), Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (2008-10), Functional Plant Biology (2006-2012)
