Thesis subject
Disease tolerance and resistance in nematode-plant interactions
Nematode resistance is becoming the corner stone of durable control of plant parasitic nematodes in agricultural settings wordwide. However, for some nematode populations effective resistances are not available, and breeders must rely on other plant traits to protect yield. These include so-called regulators of susceptibility and tolerance for nematode infections. Together these traits shape how nematode infections develop and impact the plant. We study how these interactions work mechanistically.
In your thesis research you can contribute to ongoing projects within this field. We study the plant-nematode interaction in various species, including potato cyst nematodes and root-knot nematodes. Depending on your interests and background it is possible to work on detailed protein-protein interactions but also at a much higher integration level involving decision support systems.
Your thesis work will help our understanding of current outbreaks by virulent nematode populations, and on the long run factors determining durability of nematode resistance in food crops. These results ultimately support integrated pest management in agroecosystems.
Methods and techniques: greenhouse nematode resistance assays; in vitro plant cultivation; RNA-sequencing; high-throughput imaging; advanced microscopy; molecular cloning and modeling; protein labelling; bioinformatics; data science.