Team leader of the Applied Rosaceous Genomics research group

Daniel Sargent

DANIEL SARGENT - He obtained a degree in Applied Biology specialising in Genetics from the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in 2000, after which he subsequently undertook a post-graduate certificate in secondary education in 2001 at MMU. He obtained his PhD in 2005, working on the genetic investigation of diploid Fragaria under the supervision of Professor Nick Battey at the University of Reading and Dr David Simpson at East Malling Research. After completing his PhD, he was employed initially as a post-doctoral researcher on the UK Defra funded project ‘Comparative genomics of rosaceous fruit crops and HNS for sustainable production’ from 2005-2008. Following this, Dan was promoted to research leader at EMR and was awarded research grants from the BBSRC and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), as well as the East Malling Trust (EMT) in the UK, working on various aspects of molecular genetics and genomics in Rosaceous crop plants, including ‘A genetic system to study resistance to the soil-borne pathogen Verticillium dahliae in strawberry’ (BBSRC; 2007-2011), Development and validation of molecular markers for resistance to strawberry powdery mildew (TSB; 2011-2014) and the ‘Development of an integrated physical map for Fragaria vesca’ (EMT; 2009). He was also a co-researcher on the Defra-funded project ‘Determination of the response of strawberry to water-limited conditions, identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with water use efficiency (WUE) and development of molecular markers for use in a genetic improvement programme’ (Defra; 2007-2012) (further info on his personal page).