Plenary speakers
Monday 2 May
Pierre Abad
Pierre Abad is Senior Scientist at INRA. He earned his Ph.D degree in plant pathology from the University of Paris XI Orsay in 1986. He was head of the plant health department in Sophia Antipolis (France) until 2017. He coordinates the Plant-Nematode Interaction team, which studies plant responses during compatible interactions and nematode parasitism genes. His group demonstrated for the first time the role of a plant susceptibility gene in plant-nematode interaction. This research also encompasses genome structure and evolution as well as evolution of nematode pathogenicity and durability of plant resistance genes. He initiated and coordinated the sequencing project of the root knot nematode genome Meloidogyne incognita, which was a double-first: first genome of plant parasitic animal and first genome of a parthenogenetic animal.