Press Release
The Sainsbury Laboratory and the Two Blades Foundation announce a collaborative research programme targeting major crop diseases worldwide. 20th July 2009
The Sainsbury Laboratory, a world leading centre for plant disease research, is to join forces with the Two Blades Foundation (2Blades), a US-based charitable foundation that supports the development of disease resistant crops for agriculture worldwide. The collaboration between these two groups will ensure that the ground-breaking fundamental discoveries that come from the research groups in the Sainsbury Laboratory will be rapidly translated into practical solutions to assist farmers in all corners of the globe.
2Blades currently support research programmes in laboratories around the world, but the new partnership will see them operate an applied research program within the Sainsbury Laboratory, giving them access to the world-renowned expertise while enabling the Sainsbury Laboratory to expand its fundamental scientific research to support agriculture directly.
The collaboration will be announced at a reception at the International Congress of the International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions in Quebec City on Monday 20th July. Speaking about the collaboration, Professor Sophien Kamoun said "There is already a close commonality between the activities of the 2Blades foundation and the goals of the Sainsbury Laboratory, and we are looking forward to attacking major crop disease problems together."
About The Sainsbury Laboratory http://www.tsl.ac.uk/
The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) is a world-leading research centre focusing on making fundamental discoveries about plants and how they interact with microbes. TSL is evolving its scientific mission so that it not only provides fundamental biological insights into plant-pathogen interactions, but also delivers novel, genomics-based, solutions which will significantly reduce losses from major diseases of food crops, especially in developing countries.
About The Two Blades Foundation http://www.2blades.org/
The Two Blades Foundation (2Blades) supports the development of durable disease resistances in crop plants and their deployment in agriculture. 2Blades is a US-based charitable organization that supports programs of research and development on durable disease resistance. Where research identifies ways of breeding for lasting resistance, 2Blades will seek to promote their deployment in practical programs of crop improvement. 2Blades aims to support the use of safe, environmentally-benign and sustainable strategies for crop production so as to provide long-term protection from crop losses due to plant disease.
