ד"ר דור רוס

Dor Russ is a senior lecturer in the School of Plant Science and Food Security.

He was trained as an undergrad in Plant Science and Biotechnology at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University. He received a M.Sc. in Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Technion.

Dor then completed a postdoc studying Plant-Microbe interactions in the University of North Carolina.

Academic Awards

Our lab investigates the intricate relationship between plants and their surrounding microbes, a community known as the plant microbiome.

We aim to understand how plants interact with both beneficial microbes that promote growth and harmful pathogens. By studying the complex signaling and genetic mechanisms that govern these interactions, our research seeks to decipher the fundamental principles of the plant-microbe-pathogen ecosystem.

We are particularly interested in how plants select beneficial microbes from the soil and how we can harness these natural partnerships to improve agricultural sustainability.

Our approach combines advanced molecular biology and computational techniques, including genomics and bioinformatics, to explore these fascinating questions. The ultimate goal is to translate our findings into innovative strategies for enhancing crop resilience and productivity.

• Russ D., Fitzpatrick C.R., Saha C., Law T.F., Jones C.D., Kliebenstein D.J., Dangl J.L. (2025). An efflux pump family distributed across plant commensal bacteria conditions host- and organ-specific detoxification of a host-specific glucosinolate. Nat Commun 16, 5699.
   
• Novak V., Andeer, …, Russ D., ... & Northen T. R. (2024). Multi-laboratory Study Establishes Reproducible Methods for Plant-Microbiome Research in Fabricated Ecosystems. bioRxiv, 2024-10.
   
• Russ D., Fitzpatrick C. R., Teixeira  P. J., & Dangl  J. L. (2023). Deep discovery informs difficult deployment in plant microbiome science. Cell, 186(21), 4496-4513. [Review]
   
• Jacob P., Hige J., Song L., Bayless A., Russ, D. Bonardi, V. El Kasmi F., Wünsch L., Yang Y., Fitzpatrick C.R., …, Dangl J.L. (2023). Broader functions of TIR domains in Arabidopsis immunity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(11).
   
• Tzipilevich E., Russ D., Dangl J. L., Benfey P. (2021) Plant immune system activation is necessary for efficient interaction with auxin secreting beneficial bacteria. Cell Host and Microbe.
   
• Fitzpatrick C.R., Salas-González I., Conway J. M., Finkel O. M., Gilbert S., Russ D., Teixeira P. J., Dangl J. L. (2020) The plant microbiome: from ecology to reductionism and beyond. Annual review of microbiology. 74:81-100. [Review]
   
• Snitser O., Russ D., Stone L. K., Wang K. K., Sharir H., Kozer N., Cohen G., Barr H. M., Kishony R. (2020) Ubiquitous selection for mecA in community-associated MRSA across diverse chemical environments. Nature communications. 11(1):1-9.
   
• Russ D., Glaser F., Tamar E. S., Yelin I., Baym M., Kelsic E. D., Zampaloni C., Haldimann A., Kishony R. (2020) Escape mutations circumvent a tradeoff between resistance to a beta-lactam and resistance to a beta-lactamase inhibitor. Nature communications. 11(1):1-9.
   
• Kaminski Strauss, S., … Russ D., ... & Pilpel Y. (2019). Evolthon: A community endeavor to evolve lab evolution. PLoS biology, 17(3), e3000182.
   
• Russ D. & Kishony R. (2018). Additivity of inhibitory effects in multi-drug combinations. Nature Microbiology, 1.
   
• Waysbort N., Russ D., Chain B. M., & Friedman N. (2013). Coupled IL-2– Dependent Extracellular Feedbacks Govern Two Distinct Consecutive Phases of CD4 T Cell Activation. The Journal of Immunology, 191(12), 5822-5830.
   
• Yissachar N., Sharar Fischler T., Cohen A., Reich-Zeliger S., Russ D., Shifrut E., Porat Z., and Friedman N. (2013). Dynamic response diversity of NFAT isoforms in individual living cells. Molecular cell, 49(2): 322–330.
   
• Yanai O., Shani E., Russ D., Ori N. (2011). Gibberellin partly mediates LANCEOLATE activity in tomato. Plant J. 68: 571–582