Culturing the recalcitrant CLas
The CLCC was established in 2016 with the goal of developing methods to culture C. Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), which is the causative agent of Citrus Greening Disease (also called Huanglongbing, or HLB for short). HLB has infected just about every citrus tree in the state of Florida, where it inflicts a huge economic cost. HLB is found in many citrus producing countries around the globe, and has spread to the other major citrus producing states in the USA, particularly Texas and California (and probably Arizona). Find out more about this devastating disease at our page: What is HLB and why should you care?
The project is a multi-disciplinary effort, bringing microbiologists, biological systems engineers, entomologists, plant pathologists, biochemists, genome scientists, bioinformaticians and extension specialists together to fight this devastating citrus disease.
The CLCC consists of 7 research groups in three universities in three states: Washington State University, the University of Florida and The University of Arizona.
Here is a list of Project Participants.
An outline of our Approach can be found here.
Project progress and news are described on our News page.