Plant Pathologist

Mirza Javed Iqbal https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Javed-Iqbal-Mirza May 23, 2022

MIRZA JAVED IQBAL

Mississauga, Ontario Email: ***************@*****.*** Cell: +1-647-***-**** An innovative, resourceful, and self-motivated researcher with over twenty-five years of lab and field experience. A team developer, and a human resource manager who worked in collaboration with national/international organizations. An experienced microbiologist/plant pathologist with expertise to handle cereal, vegetable, and horticulture diseases. SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS:

Research management Resource management Project development Teamwork Collaboration Human resource development Experiment design, bioassay & analysis Data analysis & report writing Surveillance & disease diagnostics Pathogen isolation & Characterization Pathogenicity and race analysis DNA extraction

Polymerase chain reaction Southern blotting Isozyme analysis Glasshouse & equipment maintenance Computer Skills

Microsoft Office, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, POP gene, Haggis, and SPSS statistics WORK EXPERIENCE:

Administration & HR development

• Administered & managed research activities at the crop Diseases Research Institute Murree, PARC for ten years

• Trained over 100 researchers, technicians, extensionists & farmers in glasshouse and field research techniques

• Supervised thesis research of MSc and Ph.D. students. Collaboration and teamwork

• Collaborated with CIMMYT & USDA to secure funding for revitalization of CDRI Murree rust research labs.

• Collaborated with national and international collaborators to establish a wheat disease surveillance network.

• Maintained annual disease distribution data from over 2000 surveyed sites.

• Used surveillance data to track rust pathogens through rust tracker, a website developed by BGRI, to generate & publish annual disease distribution maps (https://rusttracker.cimmyt.org/?page_id=1545). Research & resource management:

• Revitalized Murree wheat rust research lab by redesigning and restructuring pre-existing 60 years old glasshouse.

• Established a genotyping lab equipped with required facilities including a real-time PCR at CDRI Murree.

• Standardized lab protocols for DNA extraction, PCR, northern blotting, and isozyme analysis of plant pathogens.

• Standardized pathogen isolation, seedling inoculation, seedling screening, and race analysis protocols.

• Standardized inoculum increase, and inoculum preservation protocols as per local prevailing conditions.

• Established a controlled environment seed storage facility with a collection of over 4000 wheat genetic stocks.

• Established a controlled environment glasshouse for faster advancement of filial generations.

• Standardized culture storage, and revival protocols and established the only wheat rust type culture collection in Pakistan consisting of over 2500 isolates.

Research:

• Conducted Nurture Growth product research to compare it with competitive products in the market.

• Designed field experiments to check the efficiency of Nurture Growth to compare it with synthetic fertilizers

• Identified, characterized, and mapped a new stripe rust resistance gene YrPak in wheat landrace PI388231.

• Isolated and characterized over 2000 Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, Puccinia triticina, and Puccinia graminis isolates.

• Identified 126 races of Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici and mapped the distribution of the most prevalent ones on google maps (https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1mCFESYMP-3kyyIRAD0G6kYVAFqJ01-Q7&usp=sharing).

• Identified 27 SSR genotypes of P. triticiana among isolates collected from wheat-growing areas of Pakistan.

• Identified stem rust race RRTTF from wheat-growing areas of Pakistan and discriminated it from Ug99.

• Screened over 15000 local and exotic wheat genetic stocks to evaluate their genetic base of rust diseases.

• Identified and reported mating type A2 of Phytophthora infestans from Pakistan.

• Isolated and characterized over one thousand isolates of Phytophthora infestans from summer, autumn, and spring potato crops of Pakistan, identified their races, and characterized them for mating type, isozyme profile.

• Identified metalaxyl resistant isolates of P. infestans isolates from potato growing areas of Pakistan.

• Characterized P. infestans populations based on mating types, RFLP, and isozyme profile.

• Tested efficacy of neem products to control Phytophthora infests, the cause of late blight of potato. Mirza Javed Iqbal https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Javed-Iqbal-Mirza May 23, 2022

• Screened 500 synthetic wheat lines for their resistance/susceptibility to Karnal bunt disease of wheat.

• Standardized double haploid product protocol to produce homozygous wheat lines.

• Conducted crown and root rot disease survey of pome and stone fruits in northern areas of Pakistan

• Identified superior strains of Rhizobium Species, characterized them & used them to make rhizobium biofertilizers.

• Tested efficacy of the biofertilizer under field conditions. WORK HISTORY:

• Nurture Growth Biofertilizer, Ontario, Canada (co-op placement) March, 2022-May, 2022

• In-charge, Crop Diseases Research Institute, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council 2011-2022 EDUCATION

M.Sc. Botany University of Peshawar, Pakistan

Ph.D. Microbiology and Molecular genetics University of the Punjab Lahore, Pakistan DIPLOMAS & CERTIFICATIONS

• Wheat Rust Training (University of Minnesota, USA) 2012

• Advance Wheat Improvement & Pathology (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Mexico) 2011

• Design and Analysis of Agricultural Field Experiments (National Agricultural Research Centre, Pakistan) 2010

• Accounting and Financial management (National Agricultural Research Centre, Pakistan) 2004

• Pathology & Genetics of Rust resistance (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Mexico) 1998 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

• Norman E Borlaug Fellow University of Minnesota, USA 2012

• SARC Wheat Rust Surveillance and Monitoring workshop Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, Nepal 2015

• Workshop on standardization of stem rust notetaking, CIMMYT International, Kenya 2011

• Stem rust Baseline Survey Workshop, ICARDA, Aleppo 2008

• Workshop on Insect Pathology, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan 1996 RECENT PUBLICATIONS*

Mahmood Z., Ali M., Mirza J. I., Fayyaz M., Majeed K., Naeem M. K., Aziz A., Trethowan R., Ogbonnaya C. F., Poland J., Quraishi U. M., Hickey L.T., Rasheed A., and He Z. 2022. Genome-Wide Association and Genomic Prediction for Stripe Rust Resistance in Synthetic-Derived Wheats. Front. Plant Sci., 24 February 2022 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.788593.

Sufyan M., Mirza J. I., Saeed M., Fayyaz M., Khanzada K. A., Rattu A. R., and Kakar M. Q. 2021. Yellow rust races found in 2018-19 collection from wheat-growing areas of Pakistan. Pure and Applied Biology. Vol. 10, Issue 4, pp1063-1069.

Maryam T., Mirza J. I., Shaukat H., Naeela Q, Kerrie F., Harbans B and Urmil B. 2020. Molecular mapping of all stage stripe rust resistance gene YrPak in wheat landrace PI388231". Euphytica (2021) 217:121. Suffyan M., Mirza J. I., Saeed M., Khan M. R., Fayyaz M., Khanzada K. A., Khatti S. M., Tahir M. I. 2020. Virulence characterization of leaf rust isolates from 2017-18 wheat crop of Sindh Pakistan. Pak. J. Phytopathol. 32(02) 2020: 251-255.

Yesrab A., Khalid F., Shaukat M., Mahmood T., Hasan S. W. and Mirza J.I. 2020. Characterization of seedling and adult plant resistance to stripe rust in recombinant inbred lines derived from wheat landrace PI 388222x Avocet cross. Plant Genetic Resources 18(1):1-8.

M.U. Rehman, Gale S., Brown-Guedira G., Jin Y., Marshall D., Whitcher L., Williamson S., Rouse M., Ahmad J., Ahmad G., Shah I. A., Sial M.A., Rauf Y., Rattu A.R., Mirza J.I., Ward R., Nadeem M., Ullah G., and Imtiaz M. 2020. Identification of seedling resistance to stem rust in advanced wheat lines and varieties from Pakistan. Crop Science. 60: 804-811.

Lewis, C. M., Persoons, A., Bebber, D. P., Kigathi, R. N., Maintz, J., Findlay, K., Bueno-Sancho, V., Corredor- Moreno, P., Harrington, S. A., Kangara, N., Berlin, A., García, R., Germán, S. E., Hanzalová, A., Hodson, D. P., Hovmøller, M. S., Huerta-Espino, J., Imtiaz, M., Mirza, J. I., Justesen, A. F., Niks, R. E., Omrani, A., Patpour, M., Pretorius, Z. A., Roohparvar, R., Sela, H., Singh, R. P., Steffenson. B., Visser, B., Fenwick, P. M., Thomas, J., Wulff, B. B. H., Saunders, D. G. O. 2018. Potential for re-emergence of wheat stem rust in the United Kingdom. Communications Biology1(1):13.

*Please refer to LinkedIn or ResearchGate for complete list of publications. References are available on request

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