Sebastian Erdrich

Since the world population is expected to reach 9.6 billion people by 2050 providing a healthy diet for every human becomes a big challenge and forces agriculture to find ways to produce more crops in an efficient non-environment invasive way. One solution could be provided by reducing the yield loss caused by bacterial plant pathogens, which account for 10% of the loss in global food production. This challenge becomes even bigger since more and more bacteria become resistant to antibiotics or copper components classically used in agriculture for plant-pest control.

One solution could be the usage of Bacteriophage (Phages) which are potent specific viruses for a small range of bacterial hosts making them ideal tools for biocontrol of plant pathogenic bacteria.

My scientific interest lies in the study of the Interaction between plants, bacteria, and phages to unravel the tripartite interaction and thereby providing sustainable strategies for plant biocontrol and enhancement of plant performance. In this context, I am interested in the phenotypic changes of the plant in the presence of bacteria and phages. As well as in the isolation of novel bacteriophages for relevant plant pathogenic bacteria.