The fifth educational webinar organized by XF-ACTORS will be held on April, 21 2020 (10:00 AM Europe/Brussels time) and it will be jointly presented by Ms. Francoise Petter (EPPO) and Dr. Giuliana Loconsole (UNIBA & CNR) under the title: “Latest updates on the diagnostic tools for the detection and identification of Xylella fastidiosa: validations, improvements and performances of different procedures.”

The detection of Xylella fastidiosa is one of the most challenging aspects for the improvement of the EU plant health programs. The high number of plant species to inspect and to test requires robust and “flexible” protocols.

The webinar will provide basic information on the European approach to diagnostics and with a specific focus on validation of tests. Criteria adopted for evaluating the performance of the different tests will be presented.
The presentation will cover the main features differentiating the currently available diagnostic approaches, including an overview of the efforts made at EU level for the preparation and harmonization of the current EPPO diagnostic standard.

The speakers

Françoise Petter
Françoise Petter studied agronomy in France and first worked for the French National Plant Protection Organisation (NPPO).
She began her carried in 1986 as the manager of a regional quarantine division (Paris area). In 1994 she joined the national level of the French NPPO in 1994 as policy officer and staid in this position up to 2002. In this position she has:

• been in charge of coordination of inspections at national level,
• taken part in discussions on the plant health legislation at EU level.
• been involved in international activities (bilateral and multilateral) for the French Ministry of Agriculture In 2003,

She joined the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization as deputy director her current position. She co-ordinate and implement the Diagnostic and Pest Risk Analysis Programme for the organisation supported by a team of scientific officers and assist the Director General on more general matters.

Giuliana Loconsole
Researcher with 10 years of experience on invasive plant pathogens of woody crops gaining experience and contributing to develop novel knowledge about biological, serological and molecular characterization of olive- and citrus pathogens, development of innovative diagnostic approaches (recombinant antisera, multiplex Real-time assays and High Resolution melting analysis).
She has been involved in research projects focusing on the use of next-generation sequencing for the characterization of viral diseases of unknown aetiology and to explore the mechanisms occurring in citrus plants infected by Citrus tristeza virus, under cross-protection conditions.
She has contributed in POnTE and XF-ACTORS (research H2020 projects) to implement molecular diagnosis and genotyping of X. fastidiosa. She has published more than 15 peer reviewed papers.

The webinar is free of charge, with registration required; the language will be English and its length will be approximately one hour with a share (15′) intended for questions and discussion.

[Update]
Our fifth live webinar ended; thanks to our speakers – Françoise Petter and Giuliana Loconsole – and everyone that tuned in and interacted with us.
The webinar was recorded and it’s available below and on our YouTube channel soon.