Invited Speakers
MONDAY 5 OCTOBER
Paul Nicholson (John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK)
Keynote Lecture title:
SESSION: Plant Resistance
Paul Nicholson is a group leader in the Department of Crop Genetics at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. The focus of our research is on investigating the genetic basis of resistance of wheat to Fusarium head blight (FHB) and wheat blast which affect the heads of cereals. While both diseases reduce yield, FHB is of particular concern because the fungi produce toxins that can contaminate grain and pose a health risk to human and animal consumers. While wheat blast and FHB cause similar symptoms they differ markedly with respect to resistance. The former can be tackled by identifying conventional resistance genes while the latter is much more difficult to counter as such genes do not appear to play a major role in resistance to this disease. Much of our FHB work involves attempting to understand susceptibility as we and others have found that host components appear to aid the fungus as it infects. In order to reduce FHB disease, it is essential to identify and eliminate these so-called susceptibility factors. All our FHB and wheat blast research is intended to produce information, materials and tools to assist plant breeders to develop resistant varieties to prevent yield losses and reduce contamination of grain with toxins.
TUESDAY 6 OCTOBER
NORA A. FOROUD (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada)
Keynote lecture title: The cell wall integrity pathway of Fusarium avenaceum and Fusarium graminearum – from pathogen biology to pathogenesis.
SESSION: Pathogen biology
Dr. Foroud is a research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and has been studying Fusarium head blight disease for 20 years. She began her research career in agriculture as a summer student working in a potato breeding program and has since worked on several crops, including grapevines and fruit trees, in the areas of molecular biology and plant pathology. She completed her Master’s degree in lipid biochemistry working with oilseeds and began her research on Fusarium head blight in wheat during her PhD at the University of British Columbia. Her research program at AAFC focuses on signaling mechanisms, including plant hormones and protein kinase signaling pathways, that regulate important traits in wheat, including responses to biotic and abiotic stress. Her research on Fusarium head blight has also led her to investigate signaling mechanisms in the Fusarium pathogens themselves. She studies Fusarium mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling, enzymes that regulate numerous aspects of eukaryotic cell biology, from development to stress responses and, in the case of pathogens, pathogenicity. While her program initially focused on Fusarium graminearum, her work on Fusarium avenaceum and Fusarium head blight has expanded into collaborative research in pulse crop pathology, as pulse crops are also susceptible to this disease. Foroud’s interest in plant biology stems from her passion for nature. She enjoys spending her weekends hiking in the Canadian Rockies or puttering in the garden.
FIONA DOOHAN (University College Dublin, Ireland)
Keynote Lecture Title: Insights into the interplay between Fusarium fungi and cereals – genes, biocontrol agents and the microbiome.
SESSION: Plant-Pathogen interactions
Professor Doohan has a BSc in Industrial Microbiology from UCD (Ireland), and a PhD from John Innes Centre/Open University/Harper Adams Agricultural University (UK). After a postdoctoral position in John Innes Centre, she moved to UCD where she joined the faculty as a plant pathologist. Her research and teaching focus on plant biotechnology and plant pathology, with an emphasis on increasing the resilience of food crops and their adaptability to current and future climatic conditions. Prof Doohans’ recent research is focused on developing environmentally sustainable means of increasing Irish plant protein, including incrasing crop resilience, resistance to disease, and nutritional content, and developing alternative protein sources. She is also co-founder of the company E-Seed, focused on developing biologicals for the enhancement of crop productivity. She is the Scientific Coordinator of the EU H2020 project INNOVAR, which aims to utilize novel technologies to improve the selection of crop varieties adapted to specific environments. She has attracted over 30 million euro funding for her research programme and over 10 million for national doctoral training, has supervised over 30 doctoral students, has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers. She is a member of the Scientific Board of the Global Wheat Initiative, which was established under the direction of the G20 to provides a framework to establish strategic research and organisation priorities for wheat research at the international level in both developed and developing countries. She is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy and winner of the UCD Innovation award 2021.
WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER
CHIARA DALL’ASTA (University of Parma, Italy)
Keynote Lecture title: Mapping fungal metabolites: From Single Toxins to Metabolic Networks.
SESSION: Mycotoxins and Metabolites
Chiara is Full Professor of Food Chemistry at the Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, where she serves as Rector’s Delegate for the Doctoral Programs. She has been also appointed Honorary Professor of Food Science, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast (UK). She has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed publications in the field of food safety and has contributed to European risk assessment activities as an expert member of several working groups of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), co-authoring eight scientific opinions. Her research focuses on mycotoxins and natural compounds, with particular attention to their formation, stability, biotransformation, and mechanisms of toxicity. Over recent years, her work has increasingly integrated high-resolution mass spectrometry–based metabolomics, system biology approaches, and computational toxicology to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological effects of single and multiple chemical exposures.
THURSDAY 8 OCTOBER
CHRISTINA COWGER (North Carolina State University, USA)
Keynote Lecture title: Who’s the Culprit? Exploring Fusarial Diversity in Wheat FHB.
SESSION: Diagnosis
Dr. Christina Cowger is a small-grains pathologist with the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her research focuses on sustainable management of wheat and barley diseases. Fusarium head blight is one of her main research emphases. Her work spans the etiology, epidemiology and management of FHB, and she has authored or co-authored 23 peer-reviewed papers on the disease. She has filled knowledge gaps on fungicide applications to barley, documented new regional outbreaks of FHB, and explored fusarial diversity in FHB causation. Since 2005, Dr. Cowger has participated in the US Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative, helping to support research on FHB management and coordinating a national survey to understand how cereal producers approach managing the disease. She has spoken on behalf of the USWBSI at a Gordon Research Conference on mycotoxins and to an international group of cereal millers. Dr. Cowger has published over 95 peer-reviewed journal articles, six book chapters, and 20 extension publications. She has given over 100 invited talks in the US and abroad.
MUKESH DUBEY (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala , Sweden)
Keynote Lecture title: SIGS: An Innovative Technology for the Management of Fusarium Head Blight
SESSION: IPM strategies
Mukesh Dubey is an associate professor at the Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of AgriculturalSciences, Uppsala, Sweden. His research focuses on fundamental questions related to host-microbe interactions relevant to plant health. Professor Dubey employs cutting-edge Omics technologies to study how fungi interact with their fungal and plant hosts, and how this knowledge can be utilised for integrated disease management and promoting plant health. He is currently exploring how small RNAs influence mycoparasitic and beneficial fungus-plant interactions, with an emphasis on applying this understanding to plant disease control. Professor Dubey has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and has supervised more than 40 master’s and PhD students. He has received multiple research grants from funding agencies such as the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS), the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), SLU Grogrund -Centre for plant breeding of food crops, the Wallenberg Initiatives in Forest Research (WIFORCE), the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, and others, amounting to over 80 million SEK. He has been an invited speaker at several prestigious international conferences, including the Fungal Genetic Conference, the International Society of Plant Pathology Conference, the International Mycological Conference, and the American Society of Plant Pathology Meeting.
