Breeding for resistance in Solanaceae

The research group aims to develop breeding strategies for durable resistance in Solanaceous crops. The research focuses on the understanding of genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying disease resistances in potato and tomato against late blight, powdery mildews, Botrytis, bacteria and virus. Various genetic and genomics approaches are exploited to discover novel natural resistance genes and to study their interaction with the corresponding pathogen. Via comparative biology, the knowledge obtained in tomato/potato is applied to other related but much less well-characterized Solanaceous crops like pepper and eggplants.