Plants interact with a whole range of microbes with effects that are both beneficial (e.g. nitrogen-fixing symbioses between legumes with Rhizobium, and the wide ranging mycorrhizal interactions between plants and fungi) and harmful, with many diseases being caused by viruses, fungi and oomycetes. The module will encompass examples of all these interactions, addressing them mainly from a molecular level, both in the ways in which the microbes recognise and invade their specific hosts and in the responses and mechanisms used by the host plant to encourage the good microbes and fight off the bad ones. The Norwich Research Park is a world centre for this subject, and the module will be taught by researchers from the John Innes Centre and the Sainsbury Laboratory, as well as from UEA. There is no pre-requisite for this module, but knowledge of both plant and molecular biology would be advantageous.