Immunity and Health

Plants are our planet’s life support system. The health of plants and crops is vital for food security and supply as well as maintaining biodiversity and environmental wellbeing. EPS has extensive expertise in plant immunity and health and is continually looking to find new strategies to mitigate the damage inflicted by existing and emerging pathogens

Crop Protection

  • Fiona Burnett models and maps disease risk over the seasons and predicts the impact of climate change

  • Andy Evans studies insect-plant interactions and how they can be used in pest management

  • Neil Havis works on the biology, epidemiology and control of arable crop pathogens, fungicide efficacy and the molecular basis of fungicide resistance

  • Ruiaridh Bain studies the epidemiology and control of the late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans on potato

  • Gareth Hughes develops methods for disease risk assessment and evidence-based crop protection

  • Clement Gravouil studies leaf surface microbial interactions and how these can promote or reduce disease

  • Ian Bingham studies the response of crops to foliar disease

  • SASA conducts risk assessment of pesticides to users, consumers and the environment

 

Disease Resistance Mechanisms

  • Gary Loake studies the mechanisms and processes of plant disease resistance

  • Steven Spoel studies how immune memory is established and protects plants from future pathogen attacks

  • Karen Halliday studies how environmental temperature alters disease resistance in plants

  • Gerben van Ooijen studies the role of the circadian oscillator in maintaining plant health and immunity  

  • Graham McGrann studies how plant pathogen interact with their hosts and the environment to cause disease

  • Dale Walters works on induced resistance to pathogens and pests, and on the use of elicitors to manage diseases