Staskawicz has made many seminal contributions to the understanding of infection strategies of plant pathogens and immune response of plants.[5][6][7] These include the cloning of the first pathogen effector gene and the cloning and characterisation of one of the first plant NOD-like receptors.[1]
Staskawicz and his colleagues also played a major role in establishing Arabidopsis thaliana as a model organism to study the molecular basis of microbial recognition by plants and genetically dissect defense signaling pathways.[1] More recently[when?], he is leading an effort at the IGI in the genome editing of agriculture crops for biotic and abiotic stress resistance and improved plant performance.[1] Work in his laboratory has identified and characterised bacterial effector proteins from both Pseudomonas syringae and Xanthomonas spp.