Ida Nordström

Ida is a PhD student in the Forest Pathology research group at Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre since 2020. Her PhD work is led by associate professor Michelle Cleary specialized on emerging technologies for early detection of forest pathogens, including research projects:

• VOCs detection of Fusarium circinatum, or pine pitch canker; a pathogen with substantial economic and societal implications for a variety of Pine species. The project was aimed to develop a detection method able to differentiate F. circinatum-inoculated from mock inoculated pine seedlings (P. sylvestris, P. radiata and P. pinea) and was conducted 2021 in collaboration with a Spanish forest pathology research group led by Julio Javier Diez Casero, University of Valladolid.
• VOCs detection of Phytophthora species; A genus of fungal-like molds affecting a wide range of agricultural crops and trees, and lately cause for an emphasized concern for economically important forest species such as Pinus radiata. The project will consist of stem- and root-inoculations of beech and oak, as well as in vitro carachterization, and be led by Patrick Sherwood, Southern Swedish forest research centre, SLU.
• MinION next generation sequencing device for potential in-field detection and identification of forest pathogens. Forest pathogens commonly exhibit very similar tree symptoms and it can be difficult to determine the cause of the disease only by ocular inspection. With the help of next generation sequencing tools, we have the opportunity to develop methods enabling in-field identification of pathogens by DNA-extraction and subsequent sequencing which result can be matched against databases in real-time. The aim will be to develop a protocol for disease diagnostics of e.g. pine needles.

Ida started her career as a nurse and has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Mid Sweden University. The craving for studies in the plant biology field however led to a career change and a master’s degree in Bioresource Engineering at Umeå University. This degree generated a lot of skills and experience in plant biotechnology and chemistry, including gene editing techniques CRISPR-Cas9 and RNAi. In 2018 she conducted exchange studies in German, Biology and Global Environmental Governance at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. At CropTailor, in Lund, she developed high-throughput methods for the identification and quantification of polar lipids in oat as part of her master thesis project.