Sarah van Boerdonk obtained her B.Sc. degree in Biology at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. She completed her M.Sc. degree in Biochemistry at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, in 2022. She conducted her M.Sc. thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology focusing on the role of strigolactones during plant-pathogen interactions in rice and poplar (see https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19354). Since September 2022, Sarah is a PhD student in the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) graduate program in association with the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne.

For plants to survive in their environment, the ability to recognize and differentiate between beneficial and detrimental microbes is crucial. One of the main communication interfaces and the first contact site during plant-fungal interactions is the cell wall. β-glucans are a group of polysaccharides that can have differing lengths, linkage and branching patterns. Although they make up the largest component of fungal cell walls and are also deposited in plant cell walls during immune responses, their roles during plant‑microbe interactions remain poorly understood. To address these points, Sarah's PhD project focuses on understanding the role of β-glucans in immunity during beneficial and detrimental plant-microbe interactions (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.048).