Professor C. Korsi Dumenyo, Graduated from UG Faculty of Agriculture in 1990 where interest in genetics was born. He obtained MSc from Tuskegee University, USA working on genetic transformation and regeneration sweet potato, Ipomea batatas. He obtained PhD from University of Missouri, USA in Plant Pathology studying the regulation of virulence in soft rot and fire blight bacterial pathogens. Korsi did postdoctoral training at the University of California-Riverside, USA working on Pierce’s Disease of grapes. He has since been on faculty at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN where he studies rotting and wilting diseases of vegetables caused bacteria. 

He is currently the Academic Coordinator of undergraduate Biotechnology Program in the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He is widely published and has presented at numerous professional conferences and meetings. He is a reviewer for many academic journals and served on many expert panels to review research proposals for US federal agencies. He is the President-Elect of the Kentucky-Tennessee Chapter of American Society for Microbiology. 

“As the world population approaches eight billion people on the planet, a corresponding increase in food production is required to feed this increasing population. Among others such as climate change and shrinking arable lands across the globe, plant disease is a major threat to global food production and security costing world economies an estimated tens of billion dollars annually through yield loss, disease control and damage to the environment. The overall goal of research in my lab is to increase crop productivity by reducing plant disease incidence and severity through basic and applied research into plant diseases and their causal organisms. Our research is focused on unearthing the molecular secrets in host-pathogen interactions in two important diseases of vegetables caused by bacterial pathogens.

 We research into soft-rot disease that affects more than 80 plant species, and wilting disease cucurbit crops, both caused by plant pathogenic bacteria. We use tools of modern biology including, genomics, gene cloning, functional gene characterization, mutation studies and germplasm screens and selection in hypothesis-driven investigations to dissect into the relationships between plants and their pathogens. Our ultimate goal is to use the knowledge generated in our research to manage plant disease and increase crop productivity”.