Vavilov-Frankel Fellowships 2011 - winners announced

Bioversity has awarded this year's Vavilov Frankel Fellowships to Aurelia Samuel, from the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria and Thi Thu Huyen Bui, from the Plant Resources Center in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship Fund encourages the conservation and use of plant genetic resources by enabling outstanding young scientists from developing countries to carry out innovative research outside their own countries for a period of up to one year.

Aurelia Samuel will research a decison-support tool for devising cost-effective agrobiodiversity conservation interventions - especially important in the face of the ongoing, unprecedented global loss of agricultural species, varieties, breeds and associated traditional knowledge.

Thi Thu Huyen Bui will focus on Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.)), a traditional legume food crop in Vietnam and much of Asia. Mungbean is under attack from mungbean yellow mosaic disease (MYMD), causing yield losses of 20-70%. Her research will be a first attempt to identify the virus species and strains causing MYMD in Vietnam and to compare them to those from other countries.

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