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Directory Profile for Clint W. Magill
- Professor
- Focus Area: Plant Host/Pathogen interactions, Sorghum Resistance to Fungal Pathogens
- Office:
- PLPM 213G
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 979-845-8250
Education
- Undergraduate Education
- BSc. Agriculture Science, University of Illinois
- Graduate Education
- Ph.D. Genetics, Cornell University
- Post-Doc Molecular Genetics, University of Minnesota
- Courses Taught
- Genetics 310, 3 cr. undergraduate, offered 3 X per year (summer online)
- PLPA/ENT0/PLBR 610, 3 cr. team taught with experts in each area, in-class and online)
- Genetics 603 , 3 cr. graduate course Fall semester, in-class and online
Areas of Expertise
- Identification of Resistance Genes in Sorghum
- Identification of Virulence Factors in Pathogenic Fungi
- Genome-Wide Association Mapping
- Genetic Variability in Colletotrichum and Peronosclerospora populations
Professional Summary
Clint Magill is a professor in the Texas A&M Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology and is a member of the Faculties of Genetics and Molecular and Environmental Plant Sciences. His research currently focuses on interactions between several fungal pathogens and sorghum. He is attempting to identify genes in sorghum that confer resistance to anthrancnose, head smut and downy mildew as well as identifying the basis for race specificity in the causal pathogens.
Research Emphasis
Via cooperative projects with Dr. Louis Prom, USDA, the Magill lab is currently focused on determining the genetic basis for sorghum anthracnose, where isolates show great diversity in the ability to infect a set of 13 different host differentials.
GWAS
- Whole genome DNA sequence samples of the host and pathogen
- Identify locations in the genome of the host and pathogen associated with disease response.
RNA-sec
- Comparative samples for compatible and incompatible interactions collected at times soon after inoculation reveal key mRNAs
- Gene knockouts will be used for verification
Selected Publications
Claudia Lerma-Ortiz, Janaka N. Edirisinghe, Purbasha Nandi, Clint Magill, Danyka Ramos-Melendez, Qun Liu, Christopher S. Henry 2026 Network Analysis of Fungal Pathogen Colletotrichum sublineola Effectors in Sorghum Anthracnose doi: https://doi.org Functional /10.64898/2026.03.07.710159
Ahn, E.J., Prom, L.K., Jang, J., Baek, I., Tukuli, A.R., Lim, S., Hong, S.M., Lee, Y., Kim, M.S., Meinhardt, L.W., Park, S., Magill, C. 2025. Seed quality drives grain yield in Ethiopian and Senegalese sorghum: Insights from machine learning. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329366. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329366
Ahn, E., Baek, I., Park, S., Prom, L.K., Lim, S., Jang, J.H., Hong, S.M., Kim, M.S., Meinhardt, L.W. and Magill, C., 2025. A Machine Learning Approach to Genome-Wide Association Mapping of Disease Resistance and Geographic Origin in Sorghum. BMC Plant Biol 26, 614 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-026-08468-z
Fall, Coumba, Seunghyun Lim, Ezekiel Ahn, Sunchung Park, Louis K. Prom, and Clint W. Magill. “Unveiling the Potential Role of Dhurrin in Sorghum During Infection by the Head Smut Pathogen Sporisorium reilianum f. sp. reilianum.” Plants 14, no. 5 (2025): 740.
Ahn, Ezekiel, Louis K. Prom, Sunchung Park, Dongho Lee, Jishnu Bhatt, Vishnutej Ellur, Seunghyun Lim, Jae Hee Jang, Dilip Lakshman, and Clint Magill. “Machine learning reveals complex genetics of fungal resistance in sorghum grain mold.” Heredity 134, no. 8 (2025): 485-499.
Ahn, Ezekiel, Sookyung Oh, Jacob Botkin, Jishnu Bhatt, Dongho Lee, and Clint Magill. “Machine learning reveals signatures of transposable element activity driving agronomic and phenolic traits in mutagenized sorghum.” Discover Plants2, no. 1 (2025): 1-30.
Prom, Louis K., Ezekiel JS Ahn, Hugo E. Cuevas, Jinggao Liu, Thomas S. Isakeit, and Clint W. Magill. “Association and interrelationship among agronomic traits and fungal diseases of sorghum, anthracnose and grain mold.” Crops 4, no. 4 (2024): 651-666.
Prom, Louis K., Ezekiel Jin Sung Ahn, Ramasamy Perumal, Thomas S. Isakeit, Gary N. Odvody, and Clint W. Magill. “Genetic and Pathogenic Variability among Isolates of Sporisorium reilianum Causing Sorghum Head Smut.” Journal of Fungi 10, no. 1 (2024): 62