Plant Diseases Caused by Dickeya and Pectobacterium Species

Frédérique Van Gijsegem is a Senior Scientist in the fields of phytopathology and ecology at the French National Institute of Research for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). She has worked for decades on the interactions between bacterial phytopathogens (Ralstonia solanacearum and soft rot Pectobacteriaceae) and plants. Her research focused on the characterisation of virulence factors, expression profiling of bacterial virulence and plant defence-related genes during the course of the infection, and deciphering of the regulatory networks that govern the concerted production of bacterial virulence factors during plant infection. More recently, she moved on the genomic characterisation of Dickeya spp. diversity and analysis of soft rot Pectobacteriaceae occurrence in natural environments such as waterways.

Jan van der Wolf is working as a Senior Scientist in the field of phytobacteriology at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. He started his career in 1986 and is currently leading several projects on the diagnostics, ecology and disease management of soft rot Pectobacteriaceae (SRP). For 11 years, he has been the Coordinator of an EU Euphresco project on SRP. He described molecular methods for detection, patented the use of an endophytic biocontrol strain (Serratia plymuthica), and conducted various studies on the dissemination of the pathogens and on plant colonisation. In recent projects, the role of the microbiome of potato tubers in the suppressiveness against SRP is investigated. Most of his work is conducted in close collaboration with stakeholder in the Dutch agriculture and horticulture and financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality via the so-called 'Topsector' programme.

Ian Toth is a Senior Scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland and is the Director of Scotland's Plant Health Centre. He has worked on different aspects of the soft rot Pectobacteriaceae (SRP) or over 35 years, from molecular interactions and genomics to in-field disease control. He and his colleagues published the first genome sequence (Pectobacterium atrosepticum strain SRCI1043) for this group of pathogens in 2004 and were the first to compare plant and animal enteric pathogens at the genome level. More recently, his work has shifted towards more practical solutions for disease control using the findings from his work on genomics. He began the International Erwinia Workshop in 2006, in which every 3-4 year brings international members of the SRP community of researchers together to exchange knowledge and ideas.