Navdeep Kaur graduated from her M.S. in plant pathology at the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Auburn University in Leonardo De La Fuente’s program. One of her projects, funded by BeXyl, was to explore the relationships between pseudogenes or ‘junk DNA’ in Xylella fastidiosa strains and their potential to infect multiple plants hosts. Her research was just published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12093968/), including also the contributions of another member of BeXyl, Neha Potnis. Navdeep is currently pursuing a Ph.D. In Plant Pathology at the University of Florida.
Xylella fastidiosa Pseudogenes: A Key to Understanding Host Diversity
