Md Ziaur Rahman Bhuiyan is a post doctoral researcher in the vegetable pathology lab in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University. His project leader is Dr. Lina M. Quesada-Ocampo, a professor, vegetable pathologist, and leader of the CucCAP Integrated Disease Management Team.
What is your hometown?
Dhaka, Bangladesh
What is the focus of your work?
Plant Pathology, Genomics, and Integrated Disease Management,
Introduce yourself—your background, where you are now, and your current research focus.
My name is Md Ziaur Rahman Bhuiyan, Post-doctoral researcher in the Vegetable Pathology lab at NC State University. I obtained my PhD degree from North Dakota State University in 2022, worked on major sugar beet diseases including Cercosopora leaf spot (CLS), Rhizoctonia crown and root rot, Fusarium seedling and root rot, Sclerotinia leaf blight and root rot and post-harvest and storage pathogens. I developed my expertise on molecular detection and characterizations of sugar beet pathogens, visualization of fungal infection mechanisms using confocal microscopy, disease management etc. Currently, my area of research is focused on population genetics of P. cubensis, one of the most destructive cucurbit pathogens causing downy mildew of cucurbits in the USA. I’ll be working on fungicides resistance mutations in P. cubensis populations, and detection of host adapted clade specificity using microsatellite markers.
Why did you choose to work with Cucurbits, Plant Pathology, and Genomics?
I believe this position has ample opportunities to learn and do research independently on the cucurbit downy mildew pathogen, P. cubensis especially in the field of population genetics, fungicide resistant mutations, and evolution and phylogenetic analysis of pathogen populations. I’m curious and enthusiastic to understand the population dynamics of pathogen population and molecular aspect of fungicides resistance, thus this area of research will help me enrich my knowledge and strengthen my level of confidence working with a big research team.
What do you hope to accomplish during your time working on the CucCAP grant, and what do you most look forward to in this position?
I’m very much optimistic that this opportunity will allow me to bring a very positive impact in downy mildew genomics research especially analyses of population genetics, fungicides resistance mutation and detection of host adapted clade specificity using markers. The outcome of the research will directly help cucurbit growers for better management of the disease, fungicid companies will be able to work on new chemistry and or re-evaluation of the product efficacy, will generate interesting finding which touch scientific community to take part collaborative research on pathogen evolution, and management.
Please provide a brief description of your research.
I’ll be working on a major cucurbit disease called downy mildew caused by P. cubensis, which can cause significant yield losses annually. My research will focused on population genetics, fungicide resistant mutations, evolution and phylogenetic analysis of pathogen populations, and detection of host-adapted clade specificity of P. cubensis using microsatellite markers.
What are your favorite crops, plant diseases, and pathogens?
Crops: Sugar beet, rice, vegetable crops, cucurbits
Disease: Foliar, root crops diseases
Pathogens: Cercospora beticola, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Fusarium spp., Pseudoperonospora cubensis.
Do you have any social media handles that you want included?
Twitter & LinkedIn
