Potato blight pathogen exposed, but scientists still understanding its virulence, adaptability

potatoes The Oregonian
Abby Haight
Thursday September 10, 2009, 10:09 AM

A team of scientists have broken the code to the pathogen responsible for the potato famine, which ravaged Ireland in the mid-1800s, killing at least 1 million people and permanently altering that nation's political and cultural landscape. The team, led by the Broad Institute of Harvard University and MIT, sequenced the entire genome for Phytophthora infestans or "late blight," which still causes almost $7 billion in annual agricultural losses globally. Completion of the project was announced this week in the journal, Nature.