Professor Maruthi Gowda is a molecular plant virologist and vector entomologist with 20 years of research experience in plant-virus-insect interactions, especially those involving geminiviruses, potyviruses and their whitefly vector, Bemisia tabaci, infecting cassava, vegetables and other staple food crops in the tropics. He is a Reader in Molecular Plant Pathology at the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich in the UK. He’s currently either leading or being part of four externally funded projects, and leading a core team of researchers (nine PhDs, and one research fellow) investigating the reasons for the recent outbreak of cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) in the eastern and southern African region.

He employs multi-disciplinary research, from field epidemiology to molecular biology and tissue culture to functional genomics, to better understand plant-virus-vector relationships and mechanisms of disease resistance to enable developing improved disease control strategies. He is an active member in the plant virology community, both in the UK and overseas. In the UK, he is the chair of the Plant Virology Committee of the Association of Applied Biologists, responsible for organising international symposia every 18 months. Please see https://www.nri.org/about/people/staff/gowda-n-m-maruthi for more details about Professor Gowda.