Mr Kyle Leeuwendaal



MSc student

Department

FABI
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Primary Supervisor
Lieschen De Vos

I did my honours at FABI investigating a specific chromosomal abnormality between Fusarium species. After a brief yearlong siesta, I returned to FABI to continue my studies further with a masters under the supervision of my previous honours supervisor; the awesome Dr. Lieschen de Vos.

Current detection of pathogens on food crops is done, mostly, by culturing and morphological identification of pathogenic species. My MSc. is focused on designing a more rapid identification method that does not require specialists to identify pathogens but rather uses genomic data and sequencing technology.

 

I would love to invent the next billion-dollar idea but working in a field of interest, like genetics, and working on solving real world problems practically makes me happy. Food security now and in the future will always be a problem. Organizations like FABI and their partners are leading the way and setting the standards for how to address current and future problems we will face as a species.

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Publication
De Vos L, van der Nest MA, Santana QC, van Wyk S, Leeuwendaal KS, Wingfield BD, Steenkamp ET. (2024) Chromosome-level assemblies for the pine pitch canker pathogen Fusarium circinatum. Pathogens 13(1):70. 10.3390/pathogens13010070