Akiko Sugio, a Ph.D. candidate in Kansas State University's Department of Plant Pathology, has been awarded the 2004 Sarachek Predoctoral Honors Fellowship for her work studying the causal agent in bacterial blight of rice.

The fellowship provides a $15,000 award to a resident graduate student enrolled in a Ph.D. program at K-State. The student's research must be in a field of study relating significantly to contemporary molecular biological techniques.

Sugio, who is working under the direction of K-State professor of plant pathology Frank White, is studying the functions of virulence proteins secreted by Xanthomonas oryzae – the causal agent of bacterial blight in rice. Bacterial blight is a water-borne disease that infects rice plants when droplets carrying the bacteria (Xanthomonas oryzae) land on leaf wounds that are caused by such factors as heavy rains and high winds.

Sugio is a native of Tokyo, Japan. She received a bachelor's degree in bioengineering and a master's degree in biotechnology from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Following her time there, she spent two years as a researcher for a company that produces industrial enzymes – specifically on clones and characterizations of enzymes from plant pathogenic fungi. That work, she said, sparked her interest in learning more about how different organisms interact with each other and led to her work at K-State.

The Sarachek Fellowship is named for and endowed by Alvin and RosaLee Sarachek. Alvin Sarachek received his Ph.D. at K-State in 1957. After postdoctoral study in microbial biochemistry at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, he joined with K-State Professor Val Woodward in founding the Department of Biology at Wichita State University in 1958. He served at WSU as department chairman for 14 years and retired as Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences in 1992.

RosaLee Sarachek also was a career biologist, with bachelor's and master's degrees in biology and medical technology from WSU. She was a medical technologist on the staffs of St. Francis Medical Center and St. Joseph Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Wichita and served as the first chairperson of the medical technology program in the then newly formed College of Health-Related Professions at WSU.
Over the years, she was an active member of her husband's research group, studying the genetics of medically important yeasts. She currently serves as a volunteer with the Hereditary Neurological Disease Centre.

For more information about the Sarachek award, interested persons can visit http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/sarachekaward/ .

K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus in Manhattan.