Fighting Bac: Making microbes our allies (Stakeholder Workshop)

In the first of our Fighting Bac workshops our researchers will share promising new strategies for controlling bacterial plant diseases using microbes and microbial products. The workshop will focus particularly on the next steps for translating these findings into real world innovations and how stakeholders can get involved.

The plant microbiome is the collection of microorganisms that live on and around plants. The microbiome is a complex interdependent community which can cause disease but can also have positive benefits such as boosting disease resistance or aiding nutrient uptake. Several of our projects are researching how to harness the power of the beneficial microbes and microbial products to protect crops and trees from bacterial diseases. These novel strategies include engineering microbial communities, and highly specific bacteriophages and bacteriocins.

In this workshop researchers will share their findings so far, as well as their ideas for the next steps to turn their research into pioneering products or processes. Stakeholders will be invited to contribute to this future-focussed conversation, identifying potential areas of collaboration and knowledge exchange.

Contributing projects

• Future Oak (microbiome engineering to mitigate acute oak decline)
• Ralstonia Phage (using bacteriophages to control bacterial wilt in tomatoes)
• Disease Suppressive Microbes (using microbial mixtures and suppressive soil to suppress tomato root mat disease)
• Bac-Stop (the impact of environmental stress on the oak microbiome and acute oak decline)
• DeS-BL (using bacteriocins to control potato blackleg disease)

Register on Eventbrite to receive the Zoom link