Judith Brown

About

Judith Brown is a Regents Professor in the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the dynamics of distribution, prevalence, and co-diversification driving emergent hemipteran-transmitted plant pathogens in cultivated and natural scapes, including the phytobiome. She investigates functional genomics to identify arthropod vector-pathogen effectors and determinants that confer vector specificity, as well as cross-kingdom interactions. Her interests include emerging plant DNA virus-vector complexes, phylogeography, gene flow, and evolution of the Bemisia tabaci cryptic species group, and the biology and functional genomics of begomovirus-whitefly transmission specificity. She also studies determinants and effectors of psyllid vector-Ca. Liberibacter invasion, biopesticides using dsRNA, pathogenicity determinants of Vampirovibrio chlorellavorus, plant viral partners in the phyomicrobiome, and applications of high-throughput sequencing for discovery and molecular diagnostics. Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Arizona, an M.S. in Plant Pathology from Washington State University, and a B.S. in Horticulture from Texas A&M University. She teaches courses in Virology and specializes in biodiversity, evolutionary biology, controlled environment agriculture, genomics, bioinformatics, microbiology, and plant protection and pathology.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Virology
• Ecology
• Law
• Computational biology
• Cell biology
• Zoology
• Botany

Selected publications

• 2021 Taxonomic update of phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales

  Archives of Virology · 2021 · 93 citations

  DOI

• Exploiting somatic piRNAs in <i>Bemisia tabac</i>i enables novel gene silencing through RNA feeding

  Life Science Alliance · 2020 · 28 citations

  , where the paradigm for insect RNAi technology was established, whitefly has abundant somatic piwi-associated RNAs (piRNAs). Long regarded as germline restricted, piRNAs are common in the soma of many invertebrates. We sought to exploit this for a novel gene silencing approach. The main principle of piRNA biogenesis is the recruitment of target RNA fragments into the pathway. As such, we designed synthetic RNAs to possess complementarity to the loci we annotated. Following feeding of these exog…

  DOI

• A Complex of Badnavirus Species Infecting Cacao Reveals Mixed Infections, Extensive Genomic Variability, and Interspecific Recombination

  Viruses · 2020 · 26 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  (CSSCEV). The phylogenetic trees reconstructed for the reverse transcriptase (RT) and ribonuclease H (RNase H) sequences were incongruent with the complete viral genomes, which had the most robust statistical support. Recombination seems to be involved in the CSSD-badnavirus diversification. The genomic diversity varied among different CSSD-badnaviruses, with CSSTBV showing the lowest nucleotide diversity (π = 0.06236), and CSSCEV exhibiting the greatest variability (π = 0.21911). Evidence of st…

  DOI

• Cotton Leafroll Dwarf Virus US Genomes Comprise Divergent Subpopulations and Harbor Extensive Variability

  Viruses · 2021 · 25 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  < 1) was implicated as the primary selective force acting on viral protein evolution.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Optimal dsRNA Concentration for RNA Interference in Asian Citrus Psyllid

  Insects · 2024-01-12 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) is a citrus pest and insect vector of “Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus”, the causal agent of citrus greening disease. Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) biopesticides that trigger RNA interference (RNAi) offer an alternative to traditional insecticides. Standardized laboratory screening of dsRNA requires establishing the minimal effective concentration(s) that result in effective RNAi “penetrance” and trigger RNAi, resulting in one or more measurable phenotypes, herein,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• A. M. Idris

  65 shared

• Celine M. Vachon

  Mayo Clinic in Florida

  50 shared

• Christopher G. Scott

  Mayo Clinic in Florida

  50 shared

• Fergus J. Couch

  WinnMed

  48 shared

• V. Shane Pankratz

  48 shared

• Per Hall

  Stockholm South General Hospital

  44 shared

• Kamila Czene

  Karolinska Institutet

  44 shared

• Louise Eriksson

  Umeå University

  44 shared

Similar researchers at University of Arizona

• Eliot Hermanh-58
• Mark Beilsteinh-32
• David Baltrush-31