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Predicting the Next Plant Disease Pandemic: Symposium and Poster Session
April 5, 2023 | 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
$10 – $30Sponsored by:
As the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, adoption of new technologies and mitigation interventions to stop pandemics is not just a technical problem; solutions must be understood, embraced, and adopted by society. Prediction of plant disease pandemics is unreliable due to the lack of real-time detection, surveillance, and data analytics to inform decision-making and prevent spread. Our team has received Phase I funding from the NSF “Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP)” program. We are developing a pandemic prediction system called the “Plant Aid Database (PAdb)” that links pathogen detection by in-situ plant disease sensors and remote sensing of crop health, genomic surveillance, real-time spatial and temporal data analytics and climate data to predictive simulations of plant disease pandemics.
We will hold a symposium on April 5, followed by a smaller invitation only workshop on April 6 to discuss new tools for pandemic prediction and the social and political implications of implementing them for monitoring and managing plant disease pandemics. The open symposium is April 5th in the Plant Sciences Building on Centennial Campus in Raleigh, NC, and will include a demonstration of the PlantAid Database. Two coffee breaks and a lunch will be provided for registered guests.
We have invited a global panel of speakers for the symposium. The speakers will be covering various topics including diagnostics and sensor development, diagnostic networks at national and international levels, modeling, forecasting and genetic tracking. In addition, we will be holding a poster session for graduate students and postdocs to present their work related to the topic of managing future plant disease pandemics.
General registration for the symposium is $30; $10 for students and postdocs.
Event Agenda
| Time | Agenda | Description/Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| 8:15 – 9 | Breakfast | Served in lobby |
| 9 – 9:20 | Welcome Remarks | Adrian Percy (Plant Sciences Initiative) Warwick Arden (Provost) |
| 9:20 – 9:40 | The Persistent Threat of Emerging Plant Disease to Global Food Security | Jean Ristaino (Director Emerging Plant Disease & Global Food Security Cluster) |
| 9:40 – 9:55
9:55 – 10:15 |
Climate Change & Emerging Diseases Moderator Anna Whitfield
|
Dan Bebber (Professor, U. of Exeter) Karen Garrett (Preeminent Professor, U. of Florida) |
| 10:15 – 10:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 10:30 – 10:45
10:45 – 11:00 11:00 – 11:15 |
Diagnostics from the ground up Moderator Jean Ristaino
|
Stan Winslow, President, Tidewater Agronomics, Inc. Erin Eure, Area Specialized Agent, NC Extension John Bienapfi (USDA, APHIS) |
| 11:15 – 11:30
11:30 – 11:45 11:45 – 12:00 |
Diagnostic networks at the National & International Level Moderator Qingshan Wei
|
Neil McRoberts and Jim Stack (Director National Plant diagnostic Networks – UC Davis; Director Great Plains Diagnostic Networks – Kansas State) Stephanie Bloem (Executive Director, NAPPO) Bryony Taylor (Digital Development Coordinator, CABI Bioscience, UK) |
| 12:00 – 12:10 | Chancellor Remarks | Chancellor Randy Woodson |
| 12:10 – 1:00 | Lunch (Boxed Lunches) served in lobby | |
| 1:00 – 1:15 1:15 – 1:30 1:30 – 1:45 |
Modeling, Forecasting & Decision Support Moderator Ross Meentemeyer
|
Nik Cunniffe(Head of Theoretical & Computational Epidemiology group, Cambridge, UK) [virtual] Sarah Navarro (Regional Forest Pathologist, US forest Service Chris Jones (Centre for Geospatial Analytics, NC State) |
| 1:45 – 2:00 2:00 – 2:15 2:15 – 2:30 |
Population Genomics Moderator Ignazio Carbone
|
Diana Saunders (John Innes Research Centre, UK) [virtual] Ignazio Carbone (Director, Centre for Integrated Fungal Research, NC State) Willy A. Valdivia-Granda (Orion Integrated Biosciences Inc.) |
| 2:30 – 2:45 2:45 – 3:00 3:00 – 3:15 |
Understanding & Mitigating Threats Moderator Peter Ojiambo
|
Wendy Jin (USDA, APHIS) Romelito Lapitan (AgroBioterrorism Counter Measures, DHS) Peter Ojiambo (Professor, NC State) |
| 3:15 – 3:30 | Coffee Break | Served in lobby |
| 3:30 – 4:00 | Plant Aid Database Demonstration | Chris Jones (Centre for Geospatial Analytics, NCSU) |
| 4:00 – 6:00 | Poster Session | Organizer: Rex Alirigia |
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