Alga Zuccaro

Professor Alga Zuccaro leads fungal symbiosis research at the University of Cologne, focusing on mechanisms enabling symbiotic fungi to colonize plant roots while balancing biotrophic and saprotrophic lifestyles. Her work integrates functional genomics, transcriptomics, and biochemical approaches to study Serendipita indica and Serendipita vermifera interactions with Arabidopsis thaliana and Hordeum vulgare.

Key research areas include:

• Effector-like molecules in host manipulation
• ER stress-triggered cell death in symbiosis
• Plant immune evasion via glycan modifications
• Metabolic signaling in host-microbe interactions

Recent publications highlight nucleoside signaling (2024), β-glucan binding proteins (2024), and diterpenoid phytoalexin dynamics (2024). Her 2023 work in Nature Aging demonstrated plant-based neurodegenerative disease modeling. She contributes to the iHEAD initiative on immunometabolism, funded by North Rhine-Westphalia's Profilbildungsinitiative.

Collaborations span University of Cologne's Faculty of Medicine/Natural Sciences, Max Planck Institutes for Plant Breeding Research and Biology of Ageing. Research employs interdisciplinary tools including comparative transcriptomics, glycan receptor characterization, and metabolic signaling analysis in both beneficial and pathogenic interactions.