Professor Mahmut Tör has been working on molecular plant-microbe interactions, for more than twenty-five years. After graduating in Agricultural Science at Çukurova University in Turkey, he went to the UK to study for an MSc and PhD in Plant Pathology at Wye College, University of London. It was there he became fascinated in the, then, new area of molecular biology of plant diseases, which led to his future career in this field. Since that time, he has worked as a post-doctoral researcher, a project leader, a manager and mentor for post-docs, supervisor for students and technicians, a group leader, a university lecturer and a collaborator within international scientific consortiums. He has worked at the Universities of London, Akdeniz (Turkey), and Warwick and, for the last twelve years, at the University of Worcester. His research has been funded by both national and international funding bodies and has led to the publication of numerous articles in international journals. He has mentored more than 70 researchers and collaborated with well-known scientists across a number of academic disciplines and been involved in establishing a new scientific society to bring together plant and animal scientists fighting disease. Active at the national and international level within his field, he routinely referees grant proposals for UK, USA, Canadian, Dutch and Turkish funding agencies and manuscripts for many different international journals. He is a Visiting Professor at Hangzhou Normal University, China, serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, has been a member of different grant committees and served as the Treasurer of The British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP).