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CANBERRA ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA
Biography
Dr Thatcher leads a biologicals crop protection science area in CSIRO Agriculture & Food. Her impact goals are to maintain or improve crop productivity under a resource-limited future, mitigate the impacts of resistance development in traditional crop protection controls, and safeguard agriculture in the face of emerging biosecurity threats. She has demonstrated success in formulating and conducting H1 research delivering industry specific outcomes, through to strategic H3 research building capability, capacity and connections to advance Australia's biologicals industry and its adoption on farm.
Based in Canberra, she is a member of the Microbial Technologies team working on the discovery, improvement and deployment of beneficial microbes and microbial-derived products for crop protection, plant health and sustainable production. From microbe(biome) to natural products.
Dr Thatcher's research encompasses:
* Biological control of crop diseases and insect pests through beneficial soil microbes and endophytes, and the bioactive compounds they produce.
* Improving efficacy whilst reducing production costs of microbial-based biopesticides by engineering strains or fermentation processes.
* Developing methods and tools to quantify the co-benefits of biologicals adoption on farm, with a focus on validating the resilience, durability and resistance management benefits of microbial biocontrols.
* Investigating the tripartite interaction between plants, beneficial microbe(biome)s and pathogens/pests to identify positive or negative traits that can be a lever or point of disruption to promote plant health.
* The application of multidisciplinary approaches to solve research problems. This includes comparative -omics, analytical chemistry, microbial engineering and fermentation systems, plant genetics, plant pathology, and field trial evaluation over multi-environments.
Interested in this research?
Louise is always looking for collaborators and talented new team members. Please make contact via email.
Background:
Dr Thatcher obtained a BSc (1st class Hons, 1999) and PhD (2007) in microbiology and plant molecular biology from the University of Western Australia. Her Honours studies focused on biocontrol of bacterial diseases in aquaculture, and her PhD research examined genes controlling pathogen defense and stress responses in the model plant Arabidopsis. She completed two Postdoctoral Fellowships within CSIRO Plant Industry (Brisbane, Perth) focusing on pathogenicity mechanisms of Fusarium wilt members, plant resistance and the roles of jasmonate signalling. In 2014 Dr Thatcher led a Break Crop Genomics and Disease team where she developed Fusarium pathogenomics and molecular plant pathology research in legumes and canola. In 2019 she relocated to CSIRO Canberra and led the Crop Protection Group.
Since 2015 Dr Thatcher established and leads a biologicals for crop protection research area, developing the capability, capacity and connections to advance efficacious biologicals and their uptake in cropping systems. She successfully initiated and led projects with a leading agrichemical company to develop an innovative biofungicide prototype from a CSIRO Actinobacteria biocontrol strain, and led biologicals components of GRDC-funded projects to exploit biocontrol strains or biopesticides for control of soilborne diseases in grain crops. She has been successful in training the next generation of biologicals scientists, awarded funding as lead or co-lead on two large CSIRO Future Science Platform projects, CSIRO Research Office Postdoctoral Fellowships, and several PhD scholarships. In the last 8 years, Dr Thatcher has secured over $20M in direct or competitive funding as lead or co-lead.
In addition to her biologicals-based strategies for crop protection and improving yield, Dr Thatcher has a research interest in genetic strategies for crop disease resistance, and in mentoring and empowering early and mid career scientists to achieve their goals.
Other Interests
Mountain biking, bush walking, growing veges and catching up with friends.
Professional Areas
Current Roles
-
Co-Project Leader
Bioinsecticide discovery -
Co-Project Leader
Expanding secondary metabolite production and function prediction in Actinobacteria - AEB FSP
Academic Qualifications
-
2007
PhD (Plant molecular biology)
University of Western Australia -
1999
Bsc, Hons (1st class) (Microbiology)
University of Western Australia
Professional Experiences
-
2022-2025
Associate Editor
MPMI (Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions) -
2020-2024
Associate Editor
Plant Molecular Biology -
Aug 2023-Aug 2023
Visiting Scientist
USDA Cereal Disease Laboratory -
2019-2021
Group Leader - Crop Protection
CSIRO -
May 2019-Aug 2019
Visiting Scientist
Molecular Microbiology Department, John Innes Centre -
July 2019-July 2019
Visiting Scientist
Plant Pathology Research Unit, INRA -
2012-2017
Research Scientist
CSIRO -
2010-2013
OCE (Office of the Chief Executive) Postdoctoral Fellowship
CSIRO -
2007-2010
OCE (Office of the Chief Executive) Postdoctoral Fellowship
CSIRO -
Jan 2007-June 2007
Research Associate
CLIMA, UWA
Achievements and Awards
-
2019-2019
INRA-CSIRO exchange scheme award
CSIRO -
2018-2020
Julius Career Award
CSIRO Research Office -
2017-2017
Agriculture and Food Director’s Award in the category ‘Inclusion & Diversity’ (Team award)
CSIRO -
2015-2015
AW Howard Memorial Trust Study Grant
AW Howard Memorial Trust -
2012-2012
Science Communication Award (Team)
CSIRO Plant Industry
Other highlights
-
2016-2016
ON Innovation Program - Lean Launch Pad Team Leader - Rotstopper biologicals
-
2017-2017
ON Innovation Program - ONPrime4 team member - New Traits in Canola
Grants
-
2025-2025
Bioplatforms Australia - Sequencing Botrytis isolates (Gallart, Nowak, Thatcher; co-lead)
-
2025-2025
Bioplatforms Australia - Sequencing Streptomyces isolates (Dow, Law, Thatcher; co-lead)
-
2025-2028
CSIRO Industry PhD program - Development of singular and modular multi-purpose peptides for efficient crop protection (Belide, Thatcher, Colgrave), with ECU and Nufarm
-
2023-2027
Advanced Engineering Biology (AEB) FSP - Expanding secondary metabolite production and function prediction in Actinobacteria (Gallart, Mead, Thatcher; co-lead)
-
2024-2027
Bioinsecticide discovery with industry (Gallart, Mead, Thatcher; co-lead)
-
2022-2025
CSIRO R+ CERC - Biocontrol strain improvement (project lead)
-
2021-2024
CRC-P with industry, Pre-commercial pilot trial of novel biofungicide (project lead)
-
2018-2022
Biofungicide development with industry (project lead)
-
2021-2024
CSIRO Microbiome Future Science Platform - Plant Health (Vadakattu, Thatcher, Barrett)
-
2018-2021
CSIRO R+ CERC - Advancing microbe assisted crop protection through plant immune-biosensors and omics-guided compound discovery (Thatcher, Singh; project lead))
-
2018-2018
COGGO Research Fund - Assessment of entomopathogenic fungi (Jacques, Thatcher)
Community and Corporate Citizenship
-
2025-2025
Co-hosted CSIRO booth at the 2025 Salinas Biological Summit, California
-
2025-2025
Co-organiser - Brisbane Biologicals Symposium 2025
-
2025-2025
Co-organiser - MOSH FSP workshop 2025
-
2022-2022
Host - MOSH FSP booth - AgCatalyst 2022
-
2016-present
Participant in SAGE and STEM discussion groups, and hosting STEM students
-
2018-2019
Floor Fire Safety Warden
-
2015-2018
Deputy Floor Fire Safety Warden
Related links
- Microbial technologies for agriculture
- CSIRO Biologicals for agriculture
- CSIRO Pests and Diseases Group
- Microbiome (MOSH) Future Science Platform
- Harnessing the invisible and invaluable microbes that enhance our food, environment and health
- Can engineering biology feed more people with fewer resources?
- Overcoming a chemically limited future for weed, pest and disease control in agriculture
- Durable solutions for pest control in agriculture
ORCID 0000-0001-7622-6610
We have publications by Dr Louise Thatcher