Kiran Mysore

Kiran Mysore is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Oklahoma State University (OSU), based at the Institute for Agricultural Biosciences in Ardmore, Oklahoma. He holds an Adjunct Professor position in the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology at OSU. His academic journey includes a BSc in Agriculture from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (India), an MSc in Horticulture from Clemson University, and a PhD in Genetics from Purdue University, followed by postdoctoral training at Cornell University.

• Research Focus: Molecular plant-microbe interactions, abiotic stress tolerance, nonhost disease resistance, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and legume genetics.
• Notable Achievements: Elected Fellow of AAAS, recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru and Ruth Allen awards, and leader of a lab producing over 20,000 Medicago truncatula transposon mutants.
• Grants: Active funding from USDA and industry for projects on Agrobacterium engineering, symbiosis, and stress tolerance (e.g., $1.2M for TRTech-PGR: Engineering Agrobacterium to Express a Type III Secretion System).

Research Interests: His lab investigates mechanisms underlying nonhost disease resistance in plants, leveraging Medicago truncatula as a model. Projects include identifying genes involved in Agrobacterium-mediated transformation efficiency and engineering multi-stress tolerant plants via transposon mutagenesis. Key tools include VIGS and transposon insertion screens.

Publications: Over 250 peer-reviewed articles, with recent work on symbiotic nitrogen fixation, epigenetic regulation in nodulation, and stress-responsive genes. His lab’s Tnt1 insertion mutant collection and FST database are widely used in legume research.

Awards: Highlighted for contributions to plant-microbe interactions and agricultural sustainability through symbiosis research.

Teaching: Regularly teaches graduate-level Molecular Genetics courses at OSU.