Head of the Molecular Virology and Entomology Research Group
Organization: Natural Resources Institute (NRI) - UK
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The research group Susan heads focuses on applied as well as strategic research for controlling pests and diseases of tropical food crops especially those caused by viruses and insect vectors on cassava, sweet potato, yams and vegetables. Sue obtained a BSc in Microbiology from Imperial College (London, UK, 1984), and a PhD from the University of Bath (1988) on identifying pathogenicity genes in the plant pathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria. Subsequently she obtained scholarship funding to do fieldwork in Indonesia, and then worked as a postdoctoral scientist at The Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Centre developing DNA-based diagnostic tests for Ralstonia solanacearum. Sue joined NRI in 1992 to transfer these tests to a range of overseas countries and develop new molecular diagnostic projects. The latter have been on a wide variety of organisms, but with a strong focus on cassava begomoviruses and whiteflies, and yam viruses.