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Khalid Meksem

Khalid Meksem, Professor

Crop, Soil and Environmental Management

Dr. Mek­sem joined the Department of Plant, Soil, and Agricultural Systems at SIU as an Assistant Professor from 2000 to 2005, then as Associ­ate Professor from 2005 to 2008, and was promoted to full Professor in 2009. He published more than 60 refereed manuscripts, 3 book chapters; Dr. Meksem edited 3 books and was awarded 4 patents on his work on disease resistance genes in potato and soybean. He serves as an editor and ad hoc reviewer for a number of international scientific journals as well as for national, federal and international granting agencies.

Specialty/Interests

Dr. Meksem’s research interest cover both, structural and functional genomics, and his long time area of interest is the molecular dissection of plant disease resistance mechanisms to nematodes and fungi. Genetic diversity and crops improvement via mutation breeding and generation of alternative alleles is a major area of Dr. Meksem’s research.

Key words: Disease resistance; Functional genomics; Genetic diversity; Plant Genetic; Tilling; Mutation breeding

Khalid Meksem Office: Public Policy Institute, Room 115
Phone: 618-453-3103 
meksem@siu.edu 

Recent Publications

Liu S, Kandoth PK, Warren SD, Yeckel G, Heinz R, Alden J, Yang C, Jamai A, El-Mellouki T, Juvale PS, Hill J, Baum TJ, Cianzio S, Whitham SA, Korkin D, Mitchum MG, Meksem K. (2012)  A soybean cyst nematode resistance gene points to a new mechanism of plant resistance to pathogens. Nature. 2012; 492(7428):256-60.

Jiazheng Yuan, Mengxia Zhu, David A Lightfoot, M Javed Iqbal, Jack Y Yang and Khalid Meksem (2008) In silico comparison of transcript abundances during Arabidopsis thaliana and Glycine max resistance to Fusarium virguliforme BMC Genomics 2008: S6doi:10.1186/ 1471-2164-9-S2-S6

Jeffry L. Shultz, Deepak Kurunam, Kay Shopinski, M. Javed Iqbal, Samreen Kazi, Kimberley Zobrist, Rabia Bashir, Satsuki Yaegashi, Nagajyothi Lavu, Ahmed J. Afzal, Charles R. Yesudas, M. Abdelmajid Kassem, Chengcang Wu, Hong Bin Zhang, Christopher D. Town, Khalid Meksem and David A. Lightfoot (2006) The Soybean Genome Database (SoyGD): a browser for display of duplicated, polyploid, regions and sequence tagged sites on the integrated physical and genetic maps of Glycine max. Nucleic Acids Res. 2006 34(Database issue):D758-65

Jürgen Paal, Heike Henselewski, Jost Muth, Khalid Meksem, Cristina M. Menéndez, Francesco Salamini, Agim Ballvora, Christiane Gebhardt (2004) Molecular cloning of the potato Gro1-4 gene conferring resistance to pathotype Ro1 of the root cyst nematode Globodera rostochiensis, based on a candidate gene approach The Plant Journal 38:285-97

Wu C, Sun S, Nimmakayala P, Santos FA, Meksem K, Springman R, Ding K, Lightfoot DA, Zhang HB (2004) A BAC- and BIBAC-based physical map of the soybean genome Genome Research. 14(2):319-26

Agim Ballvora, Maria Raffaella Ercolano, Julia Weiß, Khalid Meksem, Christina Angelika Bormann, Petra Oberhagemann, Francesco Salamini, Christiane Gebhardt (2002). The R1 gene for potato resistance to late blight (Phytophthora infestans) belongs to the leucine zipper/NBS/LRR class of plant resistance genes. The Plant Journal (2002) 30(3), 361-371

Meksem K, Zobrist K., Ruben E., Hyten D., Quanzhou T., Zhang H-B, D. A. Lightfoot (2000) Two large insert soybean genomic libraries constructed in a binary vector: Applications in chromosome walking and genome wide physical mapping. Theor Appl Genet 101 5/6: 747-755

Classes

  • CSEM/ PSAS/PLB 426: Genomics and Bioinformatics
  • CSEM 305: Plant Genetics
  • CSEM 381: Plant and Soil Sciences Undergraduate Seminar
  • CSEM 257: Work experience
  • PSAS 581:  Plant and Soil Sciences Graduate Seminar
  • PSAS 590:  Reading
  • PSAS 592: Special Problems
  • PSAS 593: Individual Research
  • PSAS 599: Thesis

Education

  • Ph.D. [1995] University of Cologne: Max-Planck Institute for Plant Genetics and Breeding
  • M.S. [1990] University of Paris XI, France. Major:  Plant molecular and cellular biology; Plant biotechnology
  • B.S. [1989] University of Casablanca and the University of Fes, Morocco. Major:  Biology and Genetics

Awards

  • 2014   College of Agricultural Sciences Research Scholar award winner
  • 2008   College of Agricultural Sciences Research Scholar award winner

Other