Pathogens Webinar | Pathogenomics and Effectoromics of Verticillium Species
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Giovanni Bubici
Istituto per la Protezione Sostenibile delle Piante, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Bari, Italy;
Dr. Giovanni Bubici got Ph.D. in plant pathology in 2006. He studies the microbiome of agricultural soils. His
research is focused on soil-borne plant pathogens, such as Verticillium dahliae, Pyrenochaeta lycopersici, and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, and plant beneficial microorganisms like Streptomyces spp., especially in crops such as tomato, eggplant, olive, and banana. He isolates, selects, and tests streptomycetes as potential biological control agents and studies their modes of action. Also, he deepens the knowledge of microbe-microbe interactions by microbiological and molecular approaches to develop tailor-made microbial consortia.
Dr. Bubici identified new resistance sources against V. dahliae in eggplant, artichoke, olive and strawberry, P. lycopersici in tomato, and Leveillula taurica in eggplant. Moreover, he studies the plant-pathogen interactions and functional genomics of Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) and Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in tomato. Dr. Bubici has bioinformatics skills for analyzing metagenomics, transcriptomics, small-RNA data, and microbe’s genome assembling. Furthermore, he has competencies in parametric and nonparametric statistics applied to agriculture and uses the R software for the analyses.
Dr. Bubici does an intense peer-review activity and is editor of several scientific journals such as Australasian Plant Pathology (Springer), Pathogens (MDPI), Horticulturae (MDPI), and Frontiers in Agronomy.
The first speaker was Prof. Dr. Epaminondas Paplomatas from the Agricultural University of Athens, in Greece, who reviewed us the general features of Verticillium species and information on the molecular detection of V. dahliae, including pathotype- and race-specific PCR protocols.
After his presentation, Dr. Steven J. Klosterman from United States Department of Agriculture, in USA, described and elucidated the V. dahliae population structure.
The final presentation was given by Prof. Dr. Bart Thomma from the Universität zu Köln, in Germany, who illustrated V. dahliae effectors and their role in the interaction with the host and the microbiota.
After each talk, the chair addressed the questions and comments from the audience, establishing a fruitful context of discussion about the different aspects of Verticillium Species treated during the webinar.
Recent Advances on Pathogenomics and Effectoromics of Verticillium Species
Guest Editors: Dr. Giovanni Bubici, Dr. Jesús Mercado-Blanco, Prof. Dr. Fouad Daayf, Prof. Dr. Sabina Berne, Dr. Maria Isabella Prigigallo, Dr. Carmen Gómez‐Lama Cabanás
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022