Dierk Scheel is professor of Developmental Biology at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and director of the Stress and Developmental Biology Department at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry in Halle, Germany. His research is concerned with plant-microbe interactions, in particular with the molecular basis of recognition, subsequent signal transduction mechanisms and the resulting reactions. Dierk Scheel's research has provided important contributions to understanding the molecular basis of plant innate immunity and interorganismic communication.