Prof. Ma is an Investigator in the “Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases” named by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and an awardee of the National Science Foundation CAREER award. The Ma lab focuses on a model system Prof. Ma is an Investigator in the “Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases” named by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and an awardee of the National Science Foundation CAREER award. The Ma lab focuses on a model system Fusarium oxysporum, a cross-kingdom fungal pathogen that not only causes devastating plant vascular diseases, but can also infect humans, combining theoretical, computational and experimental approaches. The Fusarium comparative genomics demonstrates that horizontal transfer of entire chromosomes conveys pathogenicity and contributes directly to the niche adaptation. This discovery establishes F. oxysporum as an effect oxysporum, a cross-kingdom fungal pathogen that not only causes devastating plant vascular diseases, but can also opportunistically infect humans, combining theoretical, computational and experimental approaches. The Fusarium comparative genomics demonstrates that horizontal transfer of entire chromosomes conveys pathogenicity and contributes directly to the niche adaptation. This discovery establishes F. oxysporum as an effective model to investigate horizontal transfer in eukaryotes, and the pathogenicity chromosomes provide a focal point to investigate the genetic mechanisms that underlie pathogenesis against different hosts.