The Wolf Prize laureates

James P. Eisenstein

Affiliation at the time of the award:

Caltech, USA

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

James P. Eisenstein

Jainendra K. Jain

Mordehai Heiblum

James P. Eisenstein (1952, USA) earned his AB degree from Oberlin College in 1974 and completed a Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. After serving as an assistant professor at Williams College, he joined Bell Laboratories in 1983 as a member of the technical staff. In 1996, he accepted a faculty position at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and became the Frank J. Roshek Professor of Physics and Applied Physics in 2005. He retired as professor emeritus in 2018 and concluded his experimental research in 2021. Eisenstein has contributed to several National Research Council committees, including the Solid State Sciences Committee and the Board on Physics and Astronomy. He also served as associate editor for the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics from 2014 to 2017.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Pamela J. Bjorkman

Affiliation at the time of the award:

Caltech, USA

Award citation:

“For pioneering innovative strategies to overcome viral defenses through novel antibody-focused approaches”.

Prize share:

None

Pamela J. Bjorkman (1956, USA) is the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering; Merkin Institute Professor, at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Bjorkman grew up in Portland, Oregon, USA. She received a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Oregon and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University. As a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow with Don Wiley at Harvard, she solved the first 3-D structure of a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule, which functions to present pieces of potentially dangerous pathogens to T lymphocytes during immune recognition of infected cells. Dr. Bjorkman continued her postdoctoral training at Stanford with Mark Davis, where she worked on T cell receptors, and then joined the faculty at Caltech in 1989.
Bjorkman has spent decades studying how the immune system recognizes invading pathogens, aiming to develop therapeutics that enhance its response in novel ways. Her research focuses on the structure and function of molecules involved in cell surface recognition, particularly those mediating immune system recognition. She is investigating immune responses to a diverse range of viral pathogens to develop improved therapeutics and vaccines.
Pamela Björkman has made major contributions to four different areas during her career. First was her solution of the Class I Major Histocompatibility Complex Antigen (MHC) structure, a major accomplishment that transformed understanding of T-cell recognition of antigen. Next, in characterizing evolution of MHC-related proteins, she shed light on how MHC antigens could be targeted by systems other than T-cell recognition. Third, seeking how to generate a clinically effective immune response to HIV, she showed the vital importance of immunization strategies focused on conserved epitopes in order to defeat viral variants. Finally, since the advent of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, she took the lead on mapping structures engaged by antibodies on the coronavirus spike protein and relating them to the rapid evolution of this virus. Then, she developed a novel strategy, based on antibody structural constraints, to design immunogens to selectively elicit wide-spectrum antibodies against this family of coronaviruses. Taken together, hers represents a career of exceptionally sustained creativity and impact, fusing basic research and medically applicable science at the highest level.

Björkman’s recent work has been boldly innovative in designing more potent approaches to overcome viral defenses. Her studies on HIV illuminated the importance of antibodies that recognize invariant parts of the viral surface proteins. However, viral surface proteins often fold so that the immune system primarily detects parts that are easy for the virus to mutate without reducing its fitness. To overcome this, Björkman invented a new way to select positively for antibodies that target features conserved between different viral strains by exploiting the obligate dimer property of antibody structures. This innovative work represents a conceptual breakthrough and should potentially be much broader in application. Pamela Björkman’s work provides a glimpse of a new rational design strategy for future vaccines to deal with humanity’s greatest immunization challenges.

Mordehai (Moty) Heiblum

Affiliation at the time of the award:

The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

Mordehai Heiblum

Jainendra K. Jain

James P. Eisenstein

Mordehai (Moty) Heiblum (1947, Israel) is a physicist and electrical engineer, he graduated from the Technion (B.Sc., 1973) and Carnegie Mellon University (M.Sc., 1974) before earning his Ph.D. in 1978 at UC Berkeley. He began his career at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he worked for 12 years. In 1990, Heiblum returned to Israel to establish the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Center for Submicron Research at the Weizmann Institute, where he has served as director since its inception. He also founded and directed the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and holds the Alex and Ida Susan Professorial Chair of Submicron Studies.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Jonathan D. G. Jones

Affiliation at the time of the award:

The Sainsbury Laboratory, England

Award citation:

“For groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants”.

Prize share:

Jonathan Jones

Jeffery Dangl

Brian Staskawicz

Jonathan D. G. Jones (1954, England) is a plant molecular geneticist renowned for his pioneering contributions to understanding plant immunity and pathogen resistance mechanisms. Jones graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Botany (1976) and a PhD (1980) from the Cambridge Genetics Department and the Plant Breeding Institute. Following postdoctoral research on symbiotic nitrogen fixation with Fred Ausubel at Harvard (1981–1982), he worked at AGS in Oakland, California, where he collaborated with Hugo Dooner on maize transposons in tobacco. Since 1988, he has been at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK, serving twice as Head of the institute.  Jones is also a professor at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and an advisor to the Danforth Center and the 2Blades Foundation.

Plants are susceptible to various pathogens including fungi, bacteria and viruses. This can lead to significant yield losses and threaten the global food supply. For years, it was recognized that individuals within the same plant species exhibit varying disease resistance levels due to dominant alleles at resistance genes. The “gene-for-gene” hypothesis from the 1940s suggested plant disease resistance gene products interact with pathogen avirulence-gene products. However, the nature of, and functions encoded by, plant disease resistance genes remained unknown until the mid 1990s.

Much of our current knowledge of the plant immune system stems from the groundbreaking discoveries made by Jeffery Dangl, Jonathan Jones, and Brian Staskawicz. Staskawicz identified the first bacterial avirulence effector gene, providing crucial molecular evidence supporting the “gene-for-gene” theory. This discovery, alongside parallel work by Jones and Dangl, opened up the field of plant immunity. Staskawicz was also the first to show that bacterial avirulence proteins can have virulence functions inside the plant cell. Jones was the first to clone plant resistance genes that encode eukaryotic cell surface immune receptors, and all three identified multiple intracellular immune receptors. Jones and Dangl independently uncovered mechanisms by which immune receptors are activated through the indirect recognition of pathogen-effector proteins by extracellular and intracellular immune receptors, respectively. The discovery of pathogen effector proteins and plant immune receptors helped illuminate how these receptors are activated upon pathogen detection and helped reveal the downstream signaling pathways.

A landmark 2006 Nature review by Dangl and Jones provided the first detailed, and now textbook, model of the plant immune system. In a 2024 review in Cell, Jones, Dangl, and Staskawicz summarized fifty years of discoveries in plant immunity Their combined contributions significantly shaped our current understanding of the field, leading to targeted strategies to enhance resistance and to control a broad spectrum of plant diseases.

Helmut Schwarz

Affiliation at the time of the award:

Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

Award citation:

“For quantifying reactive species in the gas phase to solve fundamental problems in catalysis”.

Prize share:

None

Helmut Schwarz (1943, Germany) studied chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), earning his Ph.D. in 1972 under Ferdinand Bohlmann and completing his habilitation in 1974. After postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge, he was appointed professor at TUB in 1978. Schwarz served as Vice President of the German Research Foundation (2001–2007), as a President of the German Academy of Researchers Leopoldina (2010- 2015) and as President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2008–2017).
Chemistry first and foremost is concerned with atoms and how they arrange themselves in molecules, but more importantly how the spatial arrangement of atoms impacts their reactivity. As much as chemists tried to access the intrinsic reactivity of atoms, the subject remained elusive until the work of Prof. Helmut Schwarz. Schwarz’s research helps us understand how chemical reactions work at the most basic level, especially those involving metals and gases. His work explains how seemingly unreactive molecules, like methane (natural gas) and carbon dioxide, can participate in chemical reactions. His fundamental discoveries are significant because they can lead to better ways to make fuels, reduce pollution, and even combat climate change. Schwarz developed advanced tools and methods to study these reactions, including powerful techniques in mass spectrometry. These tools allow scientists to observe how atoms and molecules behave during chemical processes, almost like capturing a slow-motion video of the reaction. His research has also helped identify specific parts of catalysts responsible for making these processes efficient. This fundamental understanding has paved the way for designing better, “tailor-made” catalysts used in the chemical industry to produce cleaner energy and chemicals. Helmut Schwarz’s work demonstrated how we can use chemistry to solve immense problems, like creating sustainable energy sources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while deepening our knowledge of how nature works on a molecular level.

Schwarz was the first to uncover the distinct role of electronic structure in selective, metal-mediated, remote C-H bond activation. He demonstrated the existence of genuine catalytic cycles in gas-phase ion chemistry and provided convincing examples of the crucial role of relativistic effects.

From this gas-phase work of “naked” diatomic metal oxides, the “two-state reactivity” concept has emerged, becoming one of the pillars in understanding the intriguing mechanisms of P 450-mediated C-H bond oxygenation. In recent years, his research focused on understanding the selective activation of inert C-H bonds, mainly methane, for an environmentally benign conversion of hydrocarbons into value-added products. He addressed the problem of single-atom catalysis (SAC), a non-trivial challenge in conventional chemistry but much more straightforward in the gas phase, where experiments with mass-selected species under single-collision are unperturbed by solvation, aggregation, the presence of counterions, and other effects. He coupled experimental studies with quantum-mechanical calculations to address questions on how factors such as cluster size and dimensionality, stoichiometry, oxidation state, degree of coordinative saturation, aggregation or charge state affect the outcome of a chemical process.
The DEGUSSA process, which is the large-scale, platinum mediated coupling of Ammonia (NH3) and Methane (CH4) to generate HCN Provides an excellent example of how the group’s mass-spectrometry-based methods impact actual processes. More recently, the Schwarz group was able to generate heteronuclear cluster oxides, which can exhibit the rare feature of both enhanced reactivity and selectivity. Selective “doping” of cluster ions provides a way to direct chemical processes at will, with ion spectroscopy identifying the “aristocratic atoms” in the active site of a catalyst. These studies open a widely uncharted territory of chemistry where each atom counts.

Tiantian Xu

Award citation:

“For her architecture that transformed villages throughout China economically, socially, and culturally”.

Prize share:

None

Tiantian Xu (1975, China) grew up during a time of significant transformation in Chinese society. She attributes her early architectural interests to her childhood home in Fujian, a vast compound that housed more than 100 people.
The traditional structure, with its layered courtyards and interwoven corridors, left a lasting impression on her, standing out in her memory for its beauty and communal spirit. Xu earned her Bachelor of Architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing and later obtained a Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD) from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Following her studies, she worked for three years in Boston before briefly joining OMA in Rotterdam.
In 2004, at the height of China’s rapid urbanization, Xu returned home to establish her own firm, DnA (Design and Architecture). Since then, she has been at the forefront of a pioneering approach to rural development—one that contrasts with the sweeping, uniform strategies that characterized China’s urban expansion. Instead of large-scale interventions, she applies a method akin to “architectural acupuncture,” carefully identifying key pressure points and integrating local materials and construction techniques. Her work prioritizes collectivity and communal space, fostering a rural transformation rooted in sensitivity and sustainability.

Xu advocates for a holistic approach to practice, using architecture to construct social, economic, ecological, cultural, and heritage opportunities in rural China. DnA has helped revitalize small villages across Sonyang County, for example, building over 20 public structures, including the Shime bridge, which joins two villages that had been separated by a flood; an outdoor Bamboo Pavilion that was constructed by villagers; and a Water Conservatory Center. Many of Tiantian Xu’s projects have bolstered local economies and improved work environments, including the Brown Sugar Factory in Xing Village, a Tofu Factory in Caizhai Village, the Huiming Tea Space on the Chimu Mountain, and a Rice Wine Factory. Perhaps the most dramatic of her rural projects is her delicate transformation on nine abandoned stone quarries in Jinyun county, resulting in a extraordinary, environmentally sensitive public infrastructure that has stimulated regional development while making visible an important cultural and economic history.

Tiantian Xu’s architecture is remarkably consistent: she favors natural materials such as wood, brick, stone, used sparingly but to great effect. Simple detailing foregrounds the materials themselves, rendering these projects – many of which are quite large in scale – surprisingly serene. Her architecture has transformed local village economies, making production more efficient, but also more elevated, more elegant.
Tiantian Xu is awarded the Wolf Prize both for her outstanding design talent, as well as for her sensitivity and innovation in using that talent to the economic, social and cultural betterment of villages throughout rural China. Her work can be characterized as timeless and timely, paving the way to a better future – a time that lies ahead.

Jeffery L. Dangl

Affiliation at the time of the award:

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Award citation:

“For groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants”.

Prize share:

Jeffery Dangl

Jonathan Jones

Brian Staskawicz

Jeffery L. Dangl (1957, USA) is the John N. Couch Distinguished Professor of Biology and an HHMI Investigator at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A geneticist with a deep interest in the molecular mechanisms of the plant immune system. Dangl graduated from Stanford University with undergraduate degrees in English (Modern Literature) and Biological Sciences in 1981 and earned a doctorate in the Genetics Department of the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1986 for his studies of genetically engineered chimeric monoclonal antibodies in the laboratory of Prof. Leonard A. Herzenberg.

Plants are susceptible to various pathogens, including fungi, bacteria, and viruses. This can lead to significant yield losses and threaten the global food supply. For years, it was recognized that individuals within the same plant species exhibit varying disease resistance levels due to dominant alleles at resistance genes. The “gene-for-gene” hypothesis from the 1940s suggested plant disease resistance gene products interact with pathogen avirulence-gene products. However, the nature of, and functions encoded by, plant disease resistance genes remained unknown until the mid-1990s.

Much of our current knowledge of the plant immune system stems from the groundbreaking discoveries made by Jeffery Dangl, Jonathan Jones, and Brian Staskawicz. Staskawicz identified the first bacterial avirulence effector gene, providing crucial molecular evidence supporting the “gene-for-gene” theory. This discovery, alongside parallel work by Jones and Dangl, opened up the field of plant immunity. Staskawicz was also the first to show that bacterial avirulence proteins can have virulence functions inside the plant cell. Jones was the first to clone plant resistance genes that encode eukaryotic cell surface immune receptors, and all three identified multiple intracellular immune receptors. Jones and Dangl independently uncovered mechanisms by which immune receptors are activated through the indirect recognition of pathogen-effector proteins by extracellular and intracellular immune receptors, respectively. The discovery of pathogen effector proteins and plant immune receptors helped illuminate how these receptors are activated upon pathogen detection and helped reveal the downstream signaling pathways.

A landmark 2006 Nature review by Dangl and Jones provided the first detailed, and now textbook, model of the plant immune system. In a 2024 review in Cell, Jones, Dangl, and Staskawicz summarized fifty years of discoveries in plant immunity Their combined contributions significantly shaped our current understanding of the field, leading to targeted strategies to enhance resistance and to control a broad spectrum of plant diseases.

Jainendra K. Jain

Affiliation at the time of the award:

The Pennsylvania State University, USA

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

Jainendra K. Jain

Mordehai Heiblum

James P. Eisenstein

Jainendra K. Jain (1960, India) completed his bachelor’s degree at Maharaja College, Jaipur, followed by a master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. Jain earned his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University, where he worked under the guidance of Profs. Philip B. Allen and Steven Kivelson. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Maryland (1988) and Yale University (1989), Jain returned to Stony Brook University as a faculty member in 1989. In 1998, he joined Pennsylvania State University, where he continues his work. He has authored the monograph Composite Fermions (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and co-edited Fractional Quantum Hall Effects: New Developments (World Scientific, 2020) with Bertrand Halperin.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Brian J. Staskawicz

Affiliation at the time of the award:

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Award citation:

“For groundbreaking discoveries of the immune system and disease resistance in plants”.

Prize share:

Brian J. Staskawicz

Jeffery Dangl

Jonathan D. G. Jones

Brian J. Staskawicz (1952, USA) received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. He is the Maxine J. Elliot Professor of Plant & Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley, and Director of Sustainable Agriculture at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). Staskawicz is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and has been elected a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Staskawicz received a B.A. degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1974, a Master of Forest Science degree from Yale University in 1976, and a Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. After three years at the International Plant Research Institute, in San Carlos, California, he was appointed to the faculty of U.C. Berkeley, where he is now the Maxine J. Elliot Professor and chair of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology.

Plants are susceptible to various pathogens, including fungi, bacteria, and viruses. This can lead to significant yield losses and threaten the global food supply. For years, it was recognized that individuals within the same plant species exhibit varying disease resistance levels due to dominant alleles at resistance genes. The “gene-for-gene” hypothesis from the 1940s suggested plant disease resistance gene products interact with pathogen avirulence-gene products. However, the nature of, and functions encoded by, plant disease resistance genes remained unknown until the mid-1990s.

Much of our current knowledge of the plant immune system stems from the groundbreaking discoveries made by Jeffery Dangl, Jonathan Jones, and Brian Staskawicz. Staskawicz identified the first bacterial avirulence effector gene, providing crucial molecular evidence supporting the “gene-for-gene” theory. This discovery, alongside parallel work by Jones and Dangl, opened up the field of plant immunity. Staskawicz was also the first to show that bacterial avirulence proteins can have virulence functions inside the plant cell. Jones was the first to clone plant resistance genes that encode eukaryotic cell surface immune receptors, and all three identified multiple intracellular immune receptors. Jones and Dangl independently uncovered mechanisms by which immune receptors are activated through the indirect recognition of pathogen-effector proteins by extracellular and intracellular immune receptors, respectively. The discovery of pathogen effector proteins and plant immune receptors helped illuminate how these receptors are activated upon pathogen detection and helped reveal the downstream signaling pathways.

A landmark 2006 Nature review by Dangl and Jones provided the first detailed, and now textbook, model of the plant immune system. In a 2024 review in Cell, Jones, Dangl, and Staskawicz summarized fifty years of discoveries in plant immunity Their combined contributions significantly shaped our current understanding of the field, leading to targeted strategies to enhance resistance and to control a broad spectrum of plant diseases.