Application of next generation sequencing for the study and diagnosis of plant viral diseases in agriculture

TÜBİTAK - AB COST Projesi , 2015 - 2019

The COST Action FA1407 started by actively involving all the participants to settle a strong basis of

exchanges and trust between them: on-line questionnaire addressing needs and gathering ideas, "speeddating",

"elevator pitch" of each participant... From this starting point, several Action projects, linked to the

WGs, started: (i) performance testing of bioinformatic pipelines for virus detection (21 participants) and (ii)

for mutation detection (23 participants), (iii) brainstorming the impact of High Throughput Sequencing (HTS)

technologies on virus taxonomy (12 participants), (iv) design of a framework for the evaluation of

Biosecurity, Commercial, Regulatory, and Scientific Impacts of the newly discovered viruses (15

participants), (v) etiology fair to combine active teaching and scientific discovery (63 participants), (vi)

addressing challenges in the use of HTS technologies in routine diagnostics (26 participants). These

collaborative efforts already led to 4 peer-review publications including more than 10 co-authors from the

COST Action. Globally, the Action allowed strong scientific exchanges thanks to the meetings, STSMs and

training schools and led to the publication of already 33 peer review publications and 13 funded

collaborative R&D projects.

Another focus of the COST Action corresponded to the development of a multi-stakeholder approach in

order to disseminate appropriately the results and advances. An intense collaboration has been set with the

European Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO)allowing to reach the National Plant Protection

Organisations from EPPO and, at worldwide level, the Commission of Phytosanitary Measures from IPPC

(FAO).Leveraging the knowledge and know-how of all scientist has also been a priority as participants from

Inclusiveness Targeted Countries and Early Stage Researchers have represented the majority of

participants to the STSMs and training schools of the COST Action.