ISRC faculty research affiliate Gustavo MacIntosh is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State. His laboratory specializes primarily in plant molecular biology with a focus on plant-pest interactions, RNA metabolism and plant immunity.
MacIntosh’s research concentrates on cellular and molecular biology, studying how cells maintain internal metabolic balance, and how this balance is affected during specific interactions between plants and insects. He analyzes how these processes influence plant development and their barriers to control plant diseases. For example, in soybean, his research has focused on understanding the mechanisms that plants use as defense against aphids, and the strategies used by aphids to avoid these defenses.
“My laboratory is interested in the interaction between plants and insects. In particular, we study how plants respond to insect attacks, and the mechanisms used by insects to avoid plant defenses and take over plant metabolism. On the plant side, we have focused on the chemical arsenal that soybean plants use to stop insects. On the insect side, we look for salivary proteins that can interfere with the hormone signals that control plant defenses,” said MacIntosh.
MacIntosh’s work is or has been supported by significant funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, private foundations and commodity groups.
Some of his current research projects include: the characterization of the transcriptional and metabolic changes induced in soybean by the soybean aphid, the role of general stress responses in the interaction between plants and aphids, identification of novel signaling pathways that control defense responses to insects and mechanical wounding in Arabidopsis and soybean, and the biological roles of secreted ribonucleases in defense responses and also in other cellular processes.
Originally from Argentina, MacIntosh earned a Licenciatura in Biology from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata and a PhD in Biological Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. Before joining Iowa State in 2003, he conducted postdoctoral research at Michigan State University and worked at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. In 2025, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists of which he was president in 2022-2023. He is currently Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but he maintains an active research laboratory.
