2011 Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship winners announced

Vavilov-Frankel Fellows to study valuation of crop diversity and disease resistance in mungbean

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

The Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship Fund [1] 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.

Here is a quick introduction to what the two winners will be researching:

Aurelia Samuel

The unprecedented loss of agricultural species, varieties, breeds and associated traditional knowledge at global level calls for prioritization in order to decide which species to take on board Noah's Ark. The lack of a decision-support tool to establish conservation priorities undermines our ability to cost-effectively manage agrobiodiversity, including important crops for the poor.

Aurelia Samuel plans to conduct a comparative analysis of allele and variety-based approaches to assess genetic erosion and conservation priorities using a sub-set of a large publically-available dataset on maize race/genotype/allele diversity in the Americas. This will result in the development of a much-needed decision-support tool to design cost-effective policy options that allow for prioritisation of agrobiodiversity conservation interventions.

Aurelia will carry out her research at the Department of Agriculture and Ecology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen [2], in Denmark. Her fellowship is supported by Pioneer Hi-Bred, A DuPont Business [3].

Thi Thu Huyen Bui

Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.)) is a traditional legume food crop in Vietnam as in much of Asia. One of the most serious diseases threatening its cultivation in Vietnam is mungbean yellow mosaic disease (MYMD), which causes yield losses of 20-70%. Chemical control of the disease is not practical and poses high risks to the environment. Therefore, the identification of sources of resistance and the development and use of resistant varieties could offer a more effective and sustainable way to manage the disease.

Thi Thu Huyen Bui’s 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. It is also the starting point for identifying MYMD resistance in the Vietnamese mungbean collection and the subsequent development of virus-resistant breeding lines. Huyen expects her research to make a significant contribution toward the selection and development of improved MYMD-resistant mungbean lines, ultimately benefiting the small-scale farmers and consumers in Vietnam through the sustainable and environment-friendly cultivation of resistant varieties.

Huyen will carry out her research at AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center [4], at its HQ in Taiwan and Regional Center for South Asia/India, and also at the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, Queensland Government [5], Warwick, Queensland, Australia. Her fellowship is supported by the Grains Research and Development Corporation [6] in Australia.

Further information: Elizabeth Goldberg [7]

Find out more about Bioversity Research Fellowships [8]

Web Address of the page:

http://www.bioversityinternational.org/training/research_fellowships/2011_vavilov_frankel_fellowship_winners_announced.html?tx_wecdiscussion[sub]=1

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