Consiglio per la Ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'Economia Agraria - Plant Pathology Research Center (CREA-PAV)

CREA is the main Italian organization for Research in Agriculture; the activity is devoted to basic and applied research in all the fundamental topics covering plant, animals and agricultural economics. The Plant Pathology Research Centre (PAV) deals with the protection of agricultural and forestry plants against biotic agents (bacteria, fungi, viruses, viroids, phytoplasmas, etc..). It studies the plant-pathogen interaction, pathogen population epidemiology and characterization by both biological and molecular methods for pest diagnosis and control. It deals with genetic resistance and tolerance to pests to be applied to the development of resistant varieties/ lines through the use of conventional and biotechnological methods. It studies crops protection under conventional production methods, integrated and organic farming. It provides for the establishment of diagnostic methods useful in the prevention of diseases; it defines the techniques and methods of treatment, which may minimize the occurrence of pesticides residues in foods and in the environment. It provides for the establishment of suitable techniques aimed at eliminating systemic pathogens in the propagation material. Moreover the CREA-PAV owns a collection of microorganisms and reference pathogenic isolates (www.colmia.it)

The group interests and expertise are in plant virology. Research is focused on disease epidemiology and virus ecology; standardization and validation of diagnostic protocols primarily for detection, identification and characterization of novel and emerging viruses. In recent time, research is dealing with biochemical and biogenetic studies in virus/plant interaction; synergistic and antagonistic interaction between systemic pathogens; virus/vector bio-molecular analysis; genetic variation of plant virus population.