The protection of plants and human and non-human subjects from pathogens enables a multivalent approach to inhibiting pathogen infection in plant and human and non-human animal subjects and to ameliorate damage to susceptible subjects. A method for protecting a subject from a disease associated with infection by a pathogen includes providing cells of said subject with a Class I defensin and a permeabilizing defensin or a precursor or a functional homolog, analog, derivative or variant thereof of either or both.
