Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops
GIOVANNI GIULIANO
Agenzia Nazionale Per Le Nuove Tecnologie,
L’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile (ENEA)
Giovanni Giuliano is Research Director and member of the board of directors at ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development). He holds a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of Pisa and did postdoctoral studies at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author of >100 papers on international journals and 5 patents (scholar.google.it/citations?user=Yp9Iny4AAAAJ), mainly in the fields of plant genomics and (apo)carotenoid biosynthesis. He received several awards, including the Science award by the Italian Ministry of Culture and organized several conferences, including the 2018 Gordon Conference on Carotenoids. He is presently coordinating the EU-funded research project “Linking genetic resources, genomes and phenotypes of Solanaceous crops (G2P-SOL)”.
Ilan Paran
The Agricultural Research Organization of Israel – The Volcani Center, Israel
Dr. Ilan Paran is a senior researcher at the Plant Sciences Institute, The Volcani center, Israel. The main focus of Dr. Paran activity is pepper genetics and breeding. The major research interests are the development of molecular tools for pepper improvement, characterization and utilization of natural and induced variation of Capsicum, molecular mapping of fruit yield and quality traits and development of breeding lines containing disease resistance and fruit quality traits.
Jaime Prohens
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Jaime Prohens holds a PhD in Agricultural Engineering (1997) and is Full Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) since 2009. His research deals with Solanaceae vegetable crops breeding and enhancement, including assessment of diversity, hybridization, molecular markers, genomics, phenomics, quality, resistance to stresses, and evolution. He has co-authored over 170 papers in JCR journals, 60 book chapters and technical publications, and around 300 contributions to congresses, and has developed five varieties of vegetables. He has coordinated or been PI of over 50 research projects and contracts, including several international and H2020 projects. He is associate editor of plant breeding journals like Euphytica and Frontiers in Plant Science section Plant Breeding, as well as member of the editorial board of Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. He has been senior editor of the Handbook of Plant Breeding series (Springer). During the period 2004-2008 he served as president of EUCARPIA, of which presently is Scientific Secretary.
Sandra Knapp
Algae, Fungi and Plants Division/Department of Life Sciences Natural History Museum
Sandy Knapp is botanist who is a specialist on the taxonomy and evolution of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and she has spent much time in the field collecting plants, mostly in South America. Her work in Solanaceae spans biodiversity from taxonomy to phylogenetics and evolution, with a focus on the wild relatives of important crops like tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants. Current work includes a worldwide monograph of the genus Solanum, and the species of Lycianthes from New Guinea. She is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and several popular books on the history of science and botanical exploration, including the award-winning Potted Histories (2004), and more recently Extraordinary Orchids (2021). She is actively involved in promoting the role of taxonomy and the importance of science for conservation and sustainable development worldwide. Sandy is the current President of the Linnean Society of London. She has received numerous awards for her work in outreach (Peter Raven Outreach Award by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists), biodiversity conservation (UK National Biodiversity Network’s John Burnett Medal), and botanical science (Rolf Dahlgren Prize); she holds honorary professorships at University College London and Stockholm University. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Nacional de Ciencias of Argentina and Academia Europeana.
Véronique Lefebvre
The National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE)
Véronique Lefebvre is a researcher at The National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) based in France. Her research deals with Solanaceae vegetable crops genetics, including assessment of diversity, identification of loci and genes responsible for traits of interest and for domestication, using, genomics, phenomics, transcriptomics. Her current research focuses on polygenic resistance and tolerance of plants to biotic and abiotic stress, and aims to decipher the mechanisms of interaction and evolution between plants and pathogens in different environments. Since 2016, she has been coordinating with Ilan Paran the workpackage "phenotyping" in the G2P-SOL project.
Nils Stein
Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) & Georg-August-University Göttingen Nils Stein is joint research group leader and professor of Plant Genetic Resources at IPK Gatersleben and GAU Göttingen. His research focuses on genome dynamics and evolution, structural and comparative genome analysis of the small grain cereals barley, wheat and rye – with a leading role in the sequencing of the barley, wheat and rye genomes. Recent activities emphasize on the analysis of the pan-genome of barley, wheat and rye and on the systematic cataloging of global barley diversity in ex situ diversity collections as a proxy for barley systems genomics and genomics based plant breeding.
Roberto Papa
Polytechnic University of Marche (UNIVPM)
Full Professor of Plant Genetics at Polytechnic University of Marche (UNIVPM) and coordinator of the INCREASE project H2020 (www.pulsesincrease.eu).
Graduated in Perugia in 1989 and PhD at the University of Sassari, in 1994 he started the researcher position in Plant Genetics at UNIVPM (Ancona). He was the director of the Research Center for Cereal Growing (CREA-CER) in Foggia (2010-2014) and has carried out teaching and research activities in major Universities and research institutions abroad in France, Germany, Great Britain, Syria, and the United States.
Since 1990 he has been involved in the conservation of plant genetic resources and the evolution of crops, helping to clarify various aspects, using innovative population genomics and molecular phenotyping approaches for the study of genetic resources in legumes (Phaseolus ssp.) and cereals (wheat, barley, and corn), to promote the conservation of agrobiodiversity and its use in agriculture.
Maria José Díez
Polytechnic University of Valencia
Dr. María José Díez is Full Professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She holds a PhD in Biology (1989). Her research deals with tomato breeding for resistance to diseases: development of inoculation and diagnostic methods for viral diseases, identification and genetics of resistance, mapping of resistance genes and development of virus resistant research lines. Other focus of his activity has been the development of pre-breeding populations, study of the morphological and genetic diversity of some vegetable crops, especially tomato, including in this case its origin and domestication processes. She has co-authored more than 50 papers in ISI journals and registered six tomato varieties. He is the Director of the Vegetable Genebank of the Polytechnic University of Valencia since 2003 and was the Chair of the ECPGR Cucurbits Working Group from 2005 to 2016. Since 2016, she has been coordinating the WP2 about genotype and phenotype inventory workpackage in the G2P-SOL project
Hannele Lindqvist-Kreuze
International Potato Center (CIP)
Hannele Lindqvist-Kreuze is Senior Scientist at the International Potato Center (CIP), Lima, Peru with over 20 years of experience in molecular plant pathology and molecular breeding. As the Leader of Genetics, Genomics and Crop Improvement Sciences Division she is responsible for the CIP breeding activities globally with the goal to deliver improved potato and sweetpotato varieties for rapid adoption by smallholder farmers in developing countries. She has MSc from the Faculty of Agriculture, Helsinki University, Finland (1997) and PhD from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden (2002).
Arnaud Bovy
Wageningen University and Research
Dr. Arnaud Bovy is senior researcher at the Department of Plant Breeding, Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands. His research team “Breeding for Quality” aims to elucidate the genetic, molecular and biochemical basis of fruit quality traits, such as flavor, nutritional value, color and shelf life in Solanaceous vegetable crops, with a major emphasis on tomato and pepper. His research combines the characterization and exploitation of genetic diversity with state of the art X-omics approaches to unravel the biology of the above mentioned traits and identify the underlying metabolic pathways and key genes.
Susan McCouch
Plant Breeding and Genetics in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University
Susan McCouch is the Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. She also serves as Director of the Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture. She received her PhD from Cornell in 1990 and spent 5 years with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines before joining the Cornell faculty in 1995. She is known for developing the first molecular genetic map of rice and for her key and sustained role in turning rice into a model for genetics and breeding research. Her work provides a critical foundation for rapid trait identification and cultivar development, and her contribution to the development of databases and software tools has facilitated the sharing of data and accelerated rice breeding worldwide. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Presidential Award from the Crop Science Society of America, the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, the Golden Sickle Award for the advancement of international rice research, the Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, and an Honorary Ph.D. from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in India. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sanwen Huang
Vice President of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Dr. Sanwen Huang, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He works on the multidisciplinary frontier of genomics, molecular biology, and plant breeding, and devotes himself to the development of disruptive innovations for agriculture, including reinventing potato as a seed diploid crop. He has published over 100 papers in journals including Cell, Nature, and Science. He serves as member of Academic Advisory Committee of Cell. He won the National Natural Science Award of China and Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation.
Dani Zamir
Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Faculty of Agriculture of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Dani Zamir is a Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Faculty of Agriculture of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He did his PhD at the University of California, Davis, specializing in plant genetics and since then his lab at the Hebrew University aims to develop approaches to enhance the rate of progress in breeding using tomato as a model. Zamir served as the co-chair of the Steering Committee of The International SOL Genome Project (2003-2011) that sequenced Solanaceae genomes.
Toni Granell
Research Professor at the IBMCP in Valencia, Spain
Toni Granell is Research Professor at the IBMCP in Valencia (Spain).
Interest in fruit quality and diversity uses a combination of phenomics, genomics and metabolomics approaches with the final aim to undertande the genetic basis of fruit quality and use in increasing fruit flavour and nutritional composition.
Glenn Bryan
The James Hutton Institute, UK
Dr Glenn Bryan is a senior scientist at The James Hutton Institute in Dundee UK. His primary focus is in the genetic analysis of economically important potato traits, such as pest and disease resistance, as well as tuber quality and developmental traits. He was a participant in both the potato and tomato genome sequencing projects and led the UK participation in the Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium. A key role of Dr Bryan is the development and use of germplasm resources for potato trait analysis, comprising bi-parental populations and association panels, as well as diverse germplasm collections.
Yaniv Semel
Founder and CEO of Phenome Networks
Yaniv Semel holds a Ph.D. in plant genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is founder and CEO of Phenome Networks (https://phenome-networks.com/) , a company based in Israel that developed a next-generation bioinformatics platform organizing the wealth of genotype-to-phenotype data generated in the plant breeding process and genetic research. Its software is used by plant breeders, genetic researchers and variety testers in many seed companies and academic institutions. Phenome Networks is responsible for the G2P-SOL data gateway.
