Using Genomics, High Performance Computing (HPC) & Mathematics, to fight whiteflies

With the passion to contribute to existing knowledge and the quest for sustainable solutions to stop the spread of infectious diseases, am using skills in Mathematical epidemiology, Viral Phylodynamics, Genomics, Molecular/ Computational evolution and High performance Computing (HPC) to understand the spread of infectious diseases and the vectors that transmit them. Currently the focusing is on agricultural diseases because of the food insecurity problems we have in Africa. The plant in question is cassava, which is a food security crop in East and Central Africa. This plant is at risk because of the high populations of whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) in East Africa that are transmitting Cassava brown streak virus and cassava mosaic virus. The two viruses have led to ongoing pandemics of cassava brown streak disease and cassava mosaic disease. At The University of Western Australia, me and my colleagues are working hard to understand the whitefly that transmit these viruses, we know that Identifying the right species of whiteflies that transmit viruses is key to breeding resistant cassava varieties. Below is my photo in the genomics lab at UWA.