AUSTRALIA'S leading cereal rust authority has won a $480,000 grant from Microsoft founder Bill Gates to develop and train east African scientists in disease control.

Prof Robert Park, of the University of Sydney's Plant Breeding Institute at Cobbitty, received the grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to mentor PhD and Masters students and graduates from Kenya, Ethiopia and, possibly, Uganda.

Prof Park said the program aimed to arrest the global decline in wheat breeding and give food security in Africa a boost.

He said the grant would allow about six or seven east African students or graduates to study in Australia over the next three years.

Each African scientists would spend two or three years at the Plant Breeding Institute, which runs Australia's rust research program.

Prof Park said he had been involved with a project with Cornell University in New York state in the US, which was designed to counter the Ug99 strain of stem rust spreading around the world.

That project had been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation's program manager Kathy Kahn had noted the University of Sydney had a good record in training scientists in plant breeding, particularly in countering rust pathogens.

Dr Kahn encouraged Prof Park to write a funding proposal to bring east African scientists to Australia for further training in cereal-rust pathology, genetics and resistance breeding.

The university's success in obtaining the $US431,250 ($A487,916) grant was announced last week.

Rust diseases are caused by pathogenic fungi, and although considerable success has been achieved in controlling them through genetic approaches, they continue to pose significant threats to global food security.

Of concern has been a decline in the capacity to respond to cereal-rust epidemics, especially due to the retirement of key rust researchers and reduced staffing.

A shortage of trained scientists had been identified in developing countries, particularly in east Africa, where the Ug99 stem rust is believed to have emerged as one of the greatest threats to wheat production in the past five years.

While training did not counter the spread of rust diseases, Prof Park said it would help local industries in developing countries to recover from rust epidemics.

"We're talking about food security," he said.

"Food security is very important in ensuring world peace.

"The way to maintain food security is to equip people to produce food through plant breeding."

Prof Park said a crucial part of the program was to recruit the right scientists.

"We want people who show commitment and will end up going back to their home countries," he said.

"Sometimes we train people (in Australia) but their organisation redeploys them once they return."