EXPANDING AN ESTABLISHED GENOME-BASED IDENTIFICATION RESOURCE TO SURVEILLANCE OF FUNGAL PATHOGENS

The long-term goal of the project is to develop computational resources for whole genomes sequence (WGS)/metagenome sequence (MGS)-based identification of emerging pathogens of plants and animals to accelerate outbreak detection for faster interventions to slow pathogen dissemination in agricultural and natural systems.The specific objectives of the project are to:I. Develop a computationally light, yet rapid, genome similarity-based classification framework for WGS/MGS-based identification of fungi.II. Optimize, populate, and test the LINbase web server for use with fungal genomes.III. Leverage the genome similarity-based classification framework to improve MGS-based identification of fungal pathogens.IV. Train plant pathologists in WGS/MGS-based fungal identification.