Kevin King

Kevin is a plant pathologist whose work combines both applied and molecular approaches to investigate diseases that threaten food security and natural ecosystems. He has researched major diseases in crops (for example, septoria tritici blotch of wheat, leaf scald of barley, light leaf spot of oilseed rape) and in trees (ash dieback, sudden oak/larch death). His areas of expertise include aerobiology, applied plant pathology (field and lab), bioinformatics, crop protection, diagnostics development, fungicide resistance screening, microbiology, microscopy and molecular plant pathology. Kevin currently works on a range of projects relating to aerobiology, fungicide resistance and plant pathology. These projects include the development of molecular diagnostics for rapid in-field detection of different pathogen species and fungicide resistance mechanisms.

Current Research Focus:

• Aerobiology and novel sampling technologies
• Invasive fungal pathogens
• Fungicide resistance
• Metagenomics (monitoring the whole ‘aerobiome’)
• Molecular diagnostics and genomics
• Pathogen population biology