I worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) Biosecurity New Zealand to develop a specific diagnostic test for Pseudomonas syringae pv. cerasicola. I also worked on a new bacterium infecting tomatoes and capsicums. This bacterium was identified as a new organism and named 'Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum'. The species name "solanacearum" (N.L. gen. pl. n.) means "of the Solanaceae" referring to the family of plant hosts (capsicum, tomato, potato, chilli, and tamarillo), from which the bacterium has been isolated. This was published in IJSEM, and I presented this work at ICPP 2008 (see below for references). Gene sequence data in GenBank: 'Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum' .
Publications from this research
Lia W. Liefting, Paul W. Sutherland, Lisa I. Ward, Kerry L. Paice, Bevan S. Weir, and Gerard R.G. Clover (2009) A New 'Candidatus Liberibacter' Species Associated with Diseases of Solanaceous Crops. Plant Disease. 93(3): 208–214. doi:10.1094/PDIS-93-3-0208.
Lia W. Liefting, Bevan S. Weir, Shaun R. Pennycook and Gerard R. G. Clover (2009) "Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum", associated with plants in the family Solanaceae.International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 59: 2274–2276. doi:10.1099/ijs.0.007377-0.
Liefting, L.W., Weir B.S., Ward L.I., Paice, K.L., Sutherland P.W., Clover G.R.G. (2008). "A new Candidatus Liberibacter species associated with Solanaceous plants." 9th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP 2008). August 24–29 2008, Torino, Italy. [Talk as a PDF]