Project type: This project is available to 1 Bachelor or Master students and will be a part of the “PHYTOPROTECT” grant from DFF-FTP

Plant diseases must be controlled to support constant production of food and feed worldwide. Several approaches may be used to prevent and control plant diseases. Among available practices use of bactericides is a common way of controlling plant pathogens nowadays. Nonetheless, excessive use of pesticides leads to the environmental pollution that became a major problem connected to the agriculture. Currently, numerous efforts are made to control plant diseases throughout more sustainable and environment-friendly ways and limit use of often-hazardous agrochemicals. Biological control of bacterial dieses seems to be a very promising way of resolving problems connected to traditionally used bactericides. In this project you will contribute in developing a new, environmentally safe strategy to control and combat bacterial plant pathogens by usage of natural enemies of bacteria- bacteriophages.

Possible tasks:

-Isolation and characterization of novel bacteriophages

-Phage sequencing using high-throughput setup

-Lab-scale plant experiments

Supervisors: Lars H. Hansen (Professor), Witold Kot (PostDoc)