Seminar: Dr Honour McCann
“The emergence and evolution of pandemic bacterial pathogens”
Max Planck Research Group for Plant Pathogen Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen, Germany
Date: 4 November 2022
Time: 16:00 – 17:00
Location: Impulse, Campus Wageningen
Abstract:
Infectious disease imposes a severe burden on global agricultural productivity. We use population genomics to study the origins, evolutionary processes and genomic basis of adaptation among emerging bacterial plant pathogens. I will discuss recent findings of our work on a lineage of Ralstonia solanacearum exhibiting altered host range and rapid spread across Martinique in the 2000s; and multiple lineages of Pseudomonas syringae responsible for both regional and global outbreaks of kiwifruit disease in the 2010s. Investigating the processes underlying crop pathogen emergence provides us with fundamental understanding of how bacterial pathogens evolve and may ultimately contribute to the development of more resilient agricultural systems.
Friday, November 4, 2022
On location
WUR – Impulse
Stippeneng 2, Wageningen