The Translational Plant Sciences Graduate Program (TPSGP), is proud to announce that Katie D'Amico, a second-year TPS fellow who is co-advised by Dr. Enrico Bonello and Joshua Blakeslee, was recently awarded the Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research. She was awarded $1,000 for her project titled "Ramen spectroscopy as a method for predicting resistance to sudden oak death in populations of coast live oak". The goal of the project is to test whether Ramen spectroscopy, a technique commonly used in food science applications to test food quality, can accurately predict natural resistance in coast live oak trees to the invasive pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum, causal agent of sudden oak death. 

Katie's plan is to test this more sensitive method on coast live trees that are naturally infected with sudden oak death to see id resistance can be predicted in advance of infection. The broad goal of this work is to develop better management strategies for invasive forest pests and pathogens. Methods like Ramen spectroscopy could be used in advance of a pest or pathogen outbreak to locate populations of naturally resistant and/or susceptible trees, and these populations can be managed based on their resistance status.