PLPA301 Plant Pathology: Plant pathology is the study of diseased plants. The science of plant pathology involves increasing our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease processes.  The art of plant pathology involves applying that understanding to reduce damage to plants caused by diseases. There are many approaches used to study plant pathology. In PLPA 301, we will focus on the nature of disease-causing agents, the outcomes of the interaction between plants and pathogens, and the general principles we used to control the diseases.  The course includes a review of specific sub-disciplines, such as epidemiology, the genetics of plant diseases, physiological aspects of the disease process, and recent advances in biotechnology for better understanding and controlling plant diseases worldwide.

BESC481 Seminar: Capstone course for topics in bioenvironmental sciences; critical analysis of environmental issues through written themes and presentations. Dr. Shim leads a section that focuses on the critical roles of a manager/director of environmental monitoring or sustainability program in public and private sectors is to develop innovative ideas and propose projects that can achieve meaningful outcomes within acceptable budget and timeframe. Students will seek out an issue of critical significance in global plastic waste and propose a hypothetical microbial bioremediation project that has a potential to innovate how we reduce environmental waste. Students will develop a competitive proof-of-concept proposal that can successfully gain interest and approval.

BESC484 Field Experience (W course): Special problems for advanced undergraduates to permit study of subject matter not available in existing courses. A semester/summer-long professional research experience to expose the student to a professional experience with a government agency (local, state, national, or international) or a faculty-approved research project. This is a university-approved writing-intensive course. The intent of the writing component of this professional experience is to facilitate and improve your ability to: 1) communicate clearly and effectively, 2) demonstrate competence in usage of English grammar, mechanics, in the language specific to environmental professionals, and 3) write in a scientifically correct manner, including citations.

Fungal plant pathogens can cause devastating disruption to the global food supply, and the economic loss due to crop diseases can add up to billions of dollars annually worldwide.  The Shim lab at Texas A&M University is focused on studying plant diseases caused by Fusarium species, which has devastating impacts on agricultural production and food safety. But these pathogens also provide great opportunity for answering many fundamental biological and pathological questions. Notably, hazardous Fusarium mycotoxins pose a significant threat to global food safety and human health.  Crop losses as well as the regulatory, testing, and management costs associated with mycotoxins in the US tops $1 billion annually. We are pursuing research projects that will ultimately lead to innovative tools for controlling maize diseases and mycotoxin contamination. We are also spearheading research initiatives to seek solutions for devastating Fusarium wilts diseases of cotton and watermelon in Texas.

The Shim lab is actively seeking to develop multidisciplinary collaborations with colleagues at Texas A&M as well as other prominent institutions worldwide. In particular, we are extremely excited about our collaborations with Texas A&M Engineering to spearhead innovative projects aiming to seek solutions for environmental waste remediation. One of the recent projects is entitled “High-throughput synthetic biology approaches for mixed plastic degradation and reutilization”, where we will collaborate with researchers in Electrical Engineering (TAMU), Chemical Engineering (TAMU) and Environmental Genomics (U of Oklahoma) to provide a new innovative framework for efficient microbial plastic waste degradation and valorization strategy.

(Lab Members are in Bold, ^§ served as corresponding/co-corresponding author)

• Yong-Soon Park, Eli J. Borrego, Xiquan Gao, Shawn A. Christensen, Eric Schmelz, Alessandra Lanubile, Dillon A. Drab, Will Cody, Huijuan Yan, Won Bo Shim, and Michael V. Kolomiets. 2021. Fusarium verticillioides induces maize-derived ethylene to promote virulence by engaging fungal G-protein signaling. Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions (org/10.1094/MPMI-09-20-0250-R)
• Shuai Yang, Xin Zhou, Pingting Guo, Yaqi Lin, Qingwen Fan, Qussai Zuriegat, Songmao Lu, Junjie Yang, Wenying Yu, Hong Liu, Guodong Lu, Won Bo Shim, Zonghua Wang, and Yingzi Yun. 2020. The exocyst regulates hydrolytic enzyme secretion at hyphal tips and septa in banana Fusarium wilt fungus Fusarium odoratissimum. Applied and Environmental Microbiology (ttps://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.03088-20)
• Minghui Wang, Tianling Ma, Haixia Wang, Jianzhao Liu, Yun Chen, Won Bo Shim, and Zhounghua Ma. 2021. The RNA binding protein FgRbp1 regulates specific pre-mRNA splicing via interacting with U2AF23 in Nature Communications (In Press: doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22917-3)
• Wenying Yu, Mei Lin, Minghui Peng, Huijuan Yan, Jiajia Wang, Jie Zhou, Guodong Lu, Zonghua Wang, and Won Bo Shim. Fusarium verticillioides FvPex8 is a key component of peroxisomal docking/translocation module that serves important roles in fumonisin biosynthesis but not in virulence. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (In Press: doi.org/10.1094/MPMI-10-20-0273-R)
• Zehua Zhou, Yabing Duan, Jie Zhang, Fei Lu, Yuanye Zhu, Won Bo Shim, Mingguo Zhou. 2021. Microtubule‐assisted mechanism for toxisome assembly in Fusarium graminearum. Molecular Plant Pathology 22: 163-174.
• Huijuan Yan, Zehua Zhou, and Won Bo Shim. 2021. Two regulators of G-protein signaling (RGS) proteins FlbA1 and FlbA2 differentailly regulate fumonisin B1 biosynthesis in Fusarium verticillioides. Current Genetics 67: 305-315.
• Huijuan Yan and Won Bo Shim. 2020. Characterization of non-canonical G beta-like protein FvGbb2 and its relationship with heterotrimeric G proteins in Fusarium verticillioides. Environmental Microbiology 22: 615-628.
• Huijuan Yan, Jun Huang, Huan Zhang, Won Bo Shim. A Rab GTPase protein FvSec4 is necessary for fumonisin B1 biosynthesis and virulence in Fusarium verticillioides. Current Genetics 66: 205-216.
• Huan Zhang, Huijuan Yan, Won Bo Shim. 2019.  Fusarium verticillioides SNARE protein FvSyn1 harbors two key functional motifs that play selective roles in fungal development and virulence. Microbiology 165: 1075-1085.
• Gaili Fan, Kai Zhang, Jing Zhang, Jie Yang, Xiaoshuang Yang, Yanpei Hu, Jiawei Huang, Yangyan Zhu, Wenying Yu, Hongli Hu, Baohua Wang, Won Bo Shim, and Guodong Lu. 2019. The transcription factor FgMed1 is involved in early conidiogenesis and DON biosynthesis in the plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium graminearum. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 103: 5851-5865.
• Yingzi Yun, Xin Zhou, Shuai Yang, Ya Wen, Haixia You, Yuru Zheng, Justice Norvienyeku, Won Bo Shim and Zhonghua Wang. 2019. Fusarium oxysporum sp. lycopersici C2H2 transcription factor FolCzf1 is required for conidiation, fusaric acid production, and early host infection. Current Genetics 65: 773-783.
• Man S. Kim, Huan Zhang, and Won Bo Shim. 2018. Application of game theory to explore the dynamics of host-pathogen association in phytobiomes. Phytobiomes 2: 111-116.
• Man S. Kim, Huan Zhang, Huijuan Yan, Byung-Jun Yoon, and Won Bo Shim. Characterizing co-expression networks underpinning maize stalk rot virulence in Fusarium verticillioides through functional subnetwork module analyses. Scientific Reports 8:8310.
• Huan Zhang, Mala Mukherjee, Jung-Eun Kim, Wenying Yu, and Won Bo Shim. 2018. Fsr1, a striatin homolog, forms an endomembrane-associated complex that regulates virulence in the maize pathogen Fusarium verticillioides. Molecular Plant Pathology 19 (4); 812 – 826.
• Mansuck Kim, Huan Zhang, Charles Woloshuk, Won Bo Shim and Byung-Jun Yoon. 2018. Computational Approach for Identifying Pathogenic Modules of Fusarium verticillioides. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics 15 (2): 506-515.

More extensive list of peer-reviewed publications is available at scholar.google.com.