DC7 - Sarah Wurzel

Advisors: Claire Gachon, Sigrid Neuhauser, Yacine Badis

Home institution: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris.

Summary: This project will increase our understanding of the physiology and phylogenetic relationships of Olpidiopsis-like oomycetes of red algae to enable mitigation of risks to cultivated and wild populations. We aim to characterize and increase an existing collection of Olpidiopsis-like oomycetes of red algae. This will involve increasing our understanding of the diversity and phylogenetic relationships between these pathogenic oomycetes of brown, red, and green macroalgae as well as diatoms. We will also analyze the virulence strategies of different oomycete pathogens of red algae. The acquired knowledge will be applied to improve diagnostic tools in red algal pathology and to increase biosecurity in the algal cultivation sector. 

Keywords: Oomycetes, Algal pathogens, Phylogenetics, Biosecurity, Biocontrol 

More details and contact: sarah.wurzel@mnhn.fr 

Planned secondment(s): 
At HORTIMARE to learn industrial algal cultivation and husbandry, and deploy microscopy and molecular diagnostic tools in an industrial setting
At CNRS-Roscoff with Yacine Badis to learn high-end custom bioinformatics scripting