The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) was awarded a $300,000 Project Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The "IGNITE Career Project" will conduct foundational research into the ecological strategies and "weapons" (toxins) used by microbial plant pathogens that cause devastating wilt diseases in major food crops like potato, tomato, banana, and peanut. The project aims to develop innovative computational and synthetic biology methods to understand these plant pathogen warfare mechanisms, with the goal of improving crop resilience and food security. Additionally, the IGNITE Career Project will establish a hands-on STEM educational program to provide undergraduate students, especially community college transfer students and underrepresented groups, with research experience in analyzing population genomic data relevant to plant disease epidemics. The data and findings from this project will be openly shared to support national and international efforts to predict and mitigate emerging plant health challenges.
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