Sustainable crops in the face of climate change: exploiting microbial communities to manage disease risks
Supervisors:
Dr Umer Zeeshan Ijaz, James Watt School of Engineering (University of Glasgow)
Prof Barbara Mable, School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine (University of Glasgow)
Prof Ian Toth, The James Hutton Institute
Dr Sonia Humphris, The James Hutton Institute
Summary:
This is an exciting collaboration between the University of Glasgow and the James Hutton Institute in applied research with real-world implications. Using blackleg disease in potatoes as a model, the project focuses on understanding mechanisms of bacterial infection in crops and whether disease can be limited when inoculated with soil microbial communities isolated from healthy soils. This could lead to potential probiotic approaches to combat bacterial infections.
The prospective student will be embedded in the cross-disciplinary Blackleg Hub research team, which combines multiple institutions, academics, potato growers and other stakeholders (https://www.blackleghub.ac.uk). The project will include laboratory experimentation, deep sequencing and computational research, providing the student with an expansive set of skills and an interdisciplinary approach that will equip them for a wide range of career opportunities.
This will be achieved using a combination of wet-lab techniques (microscopy, microbiology, and molecular biology) and computational analysis (metagenomics, genomics and bioinformatics).
Specific training outcomes will include:
1) Proficiency in confocal microscopy, microbiology, molecular biology and plant pathology techniques.
2) Proficiency in developing bioinformatics workflows on a high-performance computing cluster for microbial community analysis.
3) Proficiency in statistical analyses in R and visualisation tools in programming environments such as Python.