Project team
Researchers from three organisations (Niab, JHI,and ADAS) are working together to deliver cutting-edge research
Niab
Niab researchers focus on research activities related to strawberry, raspberry and honeyberry
Xiangming Xu
Project co-lead.
Xiangming's research centres understanding pathogen biology and disease dynamics in relation to abiotic and biotic factors
Abi Johnson
Abi is a strawberry geneticist and breeder with experience of working on strawberry crops
May Appleby
May is a PhD researcher studying agronomic and social aspects of novel crop adoption, focusing on honeyberries
Graham Dow
Graham's research is focused on understanding mechanisms that facilitate plant-environment interactions and increase crop resilience to climate change
Julia Lambret Frotte
Julia's research interests span molecular biology, gene editing, synthetic biology and development
Samaneh Najafi
Samaneh is focussing on establishing the protoplast DNA-free gene editing
Felicidad Fernández Fernández
Feli is a fruit geneticist and breeder with special interests in raspberry, blackberry and honeyberry
Emma Wallington
​Emma leads the Crop Transformation at Niab, focussing on the transformation, gene editing of crop species, and technology development and implementation
Andrea Gutierrez
Andrea is an assistant plant breeder, applying molecular techniques to breed raspberries and blackberries
James Hutton Institute
JHI researchers focus on research activities related to raspberry, blueberry, blackberry and tools for data integration
Rob Hancock
Project co-lead.
Robert's primary interests are concerned with the biochemical determinants and impact of biotic and abiotic stress, and crop management on crop quality
Nikki Jennings
Nikki is a raspberry and blackberry geneticst and breeder
Paul Shaw
Paul focuses on software development for plant genetic resources, genetics and plant breeding
Laurence Ducreux
Laurence is the manager of the Biotechnology Facility at the James Hutton Institute, working mainly on barley and potato GM/GE and developing tools for raspberry
Susan McCallum
Susan focuses on her resesearch in blueberry genetics and breeding
Sebastian Raubach
Sebastian is a bioinformatics research software engineer focusing on data collection, storage and visualization
ADAS
ADAS is working with Niab to exploit genetic control of host resistance/tolerance against large raspberry aphids
Andrew Gladman
Andy is an entomologist whose research focusses upon host plant resistance (HPR) to insect pests, with a particular interest in the role of HPR within IPM systems
Rory Jones
Rory is an entomologist in the ADAS horticulture team specialising in insect, microbial and plant interactions
Jude Bennison
Jude is a senior research entomologist. Jude’s research focuses upon developing biological and IPM strategies in horticultural crops
Kerry Boardman
Kerry is a principal research scientist whose research focuses upon the development and testing of novel IPM strategies in protected crops