Dr Sephra Rampersad

Lecturer in Biochemistry

Education:

·         Ph.D. University of The West Indies (2004)

·         BSc. (Hons) General with a major in Biochemistry (1997)

Post Doctoral Fellowships/ Training:

• University of Oxford, UK. Short Course in (i) Immunology: A pathway through the maze and (ii) Quality assurance in the laboratory - 2006.
• Postdoctoral fellow at ICGEB, Ca’ Tron, Italy. Short Stay – 2005.
• Scientific Officer for EU-sponsored project in Department of Life Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine – 2002-2003.

Research Interests:

• Systemic acquired resistance to fungal pathogens

• Plant defense elicitors – natural and synthetic

• The role of pathogenesis-related proteins in plant defense

•  Fungal diseases on pre- and post-harvest pumpkin fruit

• Vascular wilt disease in cucurbits

• Begomovirus infection in dicotyledonous weeds

Courses Offered:

• Molecular Biology

• Microbial Biotechnology

• Further Metabolism and Gene Expression

• Biochemistry

Selected Bibliography:     

• Rampersad, SN (2003). Proposed strategies for begomovirus disease management in tomato in Trinidad. Plant Health Progress. doi:10.1094/PHP-2003-1006-     01-HM. Available from Internet: http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/php/

• Rampersad, SN, and Umaharan, P. (2003a). Detection of begomoviruses in clarified plant extracts: A comparison of standard-, direct-binding- and immunocapture PCR techniques. Phytopathology 93:1153-1157.

• Rampersad, SN, and Umaharan, P. (2003b). Detection of two bipartite geminiviruses infecting dicotyledonous weeds in Trinidad. Plant Disease 87:602.

• Rampersad, SN, and Umaharan, P. (2003c). Identification of resistance to Potato yellow mosaic virus-Trinidad isolate (PYMV-TT) among Lycopersicon species. Plant Disease 87:686-691.

• Rampersad, S.N. and Umaharan, P. 2001. Occurrence and distribution of geminiviruses among weeds in Trinidad (Abstr.). In: Proceedings of the 3^rdInternational Geminivirus Symposium.  John Innes Centre, Norfolk, Norwich, UK. July 24-28, 2001.

• Rampersad, SN, and Umaharan, P. The effect of plant genomic DNA on the detection of mixed infections of begomoviruses using PCR with degenerate primers. Journal of Tropical Agriculture – In Press.