DATABASE PLANTING OSU institute receives $1M grant to streamline plant disease testing By Alisa Boswell-Gore
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i&E
BIO Edition 2022
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF BIOSECURITY AND MICROBIAL FORENSICS scientists are heading a national project geared toward creating more efficient diagnostic practices for plant pathogens. The $1 million project, funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, aims to safeguard U.S. production systems, ensure safe and beneficial trade and ensure food security and environmental protection. Plant pathologists nationwide have developed diagnostic tools for various plant pathogens, but the information is dispersed across the nation and housed in several places, said Kitty Cardwell, director of IBMF and professor of plant pathology. “We want to create this ecosystem of scientists and resources, so when a scientist
needs to develop a plant disease diagnostic test, they will have a place to find other researchers working on the same organism and can access the reference standards and genetic data they need,” Cardwell said. The Diagnostic Assay Validation Network (DAVN) will house information about researchers, pathogen genetic data and diagnostic tools developed for plant pathogens. It will catalog the information in a way that allows plant pathologists to find the information quickly and efficiently. “If there is an outbreak of an unknown plant disease, developing a verified test that works properly can take years, so we hope by having this database, scientists can use these resources to create a pathogen test more quickly,” Cardwell said.
