Quantifying and Engineering Asymptomatic Viruses in Grasses

New genome sequencing technologies are revealing an incredible abundance and diversity of plant viruses that was previously unimagined. These range from the Nanoviruses - with many tiny genomes; and ‘persistent’, asymptomatic viruses, such as the Partitiviruses, that spend their entire lifecycle within the host plant. Other viruses live within fungi that live within leaves and confer heat tolerance to the host plant; there are viruses of white clover that suppress the formation of nitrogen fixing nodules when adequate nitrogen is present in the soil and a virus that infects wild gourds where it reduces the production of volatiles that attracts vectors of a bacterial wilt pathogen. For better or for worse, plant viruses therefore display a remarkable capacity to reprogram plant growth and development. In this project you will use Next Generation Sequencing technologies and bioinformatics analysis to survey the abundance and species richness of viruses in healthy grass species – both cereal crops and their wild relatives. This information will contribute towards the development of plant health monitoring tools and policies. You will also directly study the interactions of the viruses with their host plant within the laboratory. This will involve assaying potentially beneficial viruses for their physiological and biochemical role and building disarmed modified viral genomes to study viral function through reverse genetics methodologies, track viral movement within the plant and lay the groundwork for the development of novel tools for cereal science.

For further information see the website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/biology//

To apply:
Please submit a full CV and covering letter directly to [Email Address Removed]