Fera Science Webinar – Insight into Fera’s ongoing and future projects
Fera Science Webinar – Insight into Fera’s ongoing and future projects
In late June Fera Science held a webinar entitled: “From Research to Regulation: A deep dive into bacteriophage applications and challenges”. The webinar focused on bacteriophages (viruses that devour bacteria) as a form of biocontrol against microbial pathogens. Five guest speakers discussed academic research, regulation, and commercial applications of bacteriophages.
Dr. Joana Vincente, plant bacteriologist in Fera Science, UK spoke about projects which are focused on bacteriophages. Fera Science hosts The National Collection of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria (NCPPB) that maintains cultures of the world’s bacterial plant pathogens and related bacteria. They have over 4000 isolates and have some other in-house collections. These collections are essential to test any control methods that might be possible.
Dr. Vincente discussed a project focusing on using bacteriophages to treat mushroom blotching caused by different Pseudomonas species. Blotch disease accounts for >10% crop loss due to spoilage. Bacteriophages have the added advantage of being target specific which is useful due to the fact some Pseudomonas species are needed in order to grow mushrooms. Therefore, having a biocontrol which only targets the blotch causing Pseudomonas species is paramount. The study conducted in collaboration with the University of Cambridge collected mushroom farm samples from across England leading to a good collection of bacteriophages and isolates. These samples were then screened, sequenced, and characterised in order to find the most ideal bacteriophage candidates to target Pseudomonas tolaasii which causes brown blotch. Preliminary results have shown that the applied candidate bacteriophages led to smaller blotched areas on mushrooms.
Fera Science were also involved in the bacteriophage research conducted by Prof. Friman on Ralstonia (Link to blog post). Moreover, Dr. Vincente presented on a project focused on Xylella fastidiosa which is a pathogenic bacterium transported by insects that infects over 600 crop species causing scorching of plant tissues, wilting, die back and plant death. This is worsened by the fact that there is no known cure for the disease. Fera Science along with a consortium of 9 other institutions hopes to build greater UK resilience to such pathogenic bacteria via this research; The BeXyl Project and two other Euphresco projects (detection of Xylella in dormant plant materials; droplet direct PCR [ddPCR] for detection of Xylella).
The need for innovative and collaborative solutions to deal with such crop diseases has never been more important in order to better both agricultural systems and food security.
If you need any support with the registration of biocontrol products in Europe, please do not hesitate in contacting one of our regulatory consultants at info@kerona.ie