About Us

The Plant Pathology Research Institute Historical background:
? The agricultural research was started in Egypt in 1898 through the Royal Society of Agriculture that became the ministry of agriculture later on.
? The first published plant pathology research paper was conducted by the mycology branch on infection of banana by nematode (1901).
? Mr. Briton Jones was the first director of the Mycology branch (1919).
? Nowadays, the plant Pathology Research Institute consists of seventeen specialized research departments, a central laboratory for biotechnology and a specialized unit for plant disease diagnosis, identification of microorganisms and biological control.
* The vision:
A high agricultural production that is free of microbial and/or chemical contaminants to ensure healthy and safe human food, animal feed and environment.
* The Mission:
Developing and manipulating all the available human, technical resources, the biotechnological tools and instruments for accurate diagnosis and control of plans pathogens.
*The Strategy:
Using and upgrading all the approaches, methods and techniques to control and manage the plant disease problems focusing on the safe alternatives and biological pesticides in addition to developing disease-resistant plants.

Strategy steps for the institute Development:
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Several approaches are taken in the Institute for a comprehensive development in the research and managenal areas through 2007-2012 plan:
1- In the infrastructure:
- A continuous development and remodeling are taking place in the Laboratories and the computer center.
- Upgrading and remodeling greenhouses in the different agricultural experimental stations.
- Establishing new specialized greenhouses for the wheat diseases molecular researches.
- Upgrading the buildings and Laboratories of wheat and barley diseases Departments.
- A continuous upgrading of the Central Laboratories of Biotechnology and providing it with all the necessary modern equipment and instruments.


2-In the research area:
- Activating and supporting the research advisory committee to help and react with researchers to determine problems and focus on solving them to make the research feasible.
- Focusing on and updating the applied research to solve plant disease problems and increase the good quality agricultural yield.
- Adopting biotechnology in plant disease diagnosis and developing disease – resistant plants.
- Establishing a research subject data bane for the previous studies to avoid redundence.
- Encouraging the use and manipulation of the scientific modern tools and instruments in plant pathology research such as:
• The Real-Time PCR
• The DNA- Sequencer
• Protein and DNA extraction and electrophoresis units
• HPLC and GC-mass

- Enhancing the English language and computer skills for the researchers.
- Training and helping the researchers in writing, submitting and research proposals to get fund for their research projects.
3- In Human Resources:
437 Research numbers and associates will be taken care of in:
- Enhancing their research skills.
- updating their promotion skills and abide the promotion rules with additional skills such as managerial, computer and language skills.
-Qualifying the researchers to publish their scientific research papers in the international journals and attend the national and international conferences and workshops.
4- Training and Extension :
Training and Extension programs should be designed on scientific bases:
- Training farmers and extension specialists, on dealing with and solving plant disease problems on their occurrence spots.
- Updating the extension and technology transfer tools.
- Training the administrative staff on the recent managerial, communication and computer skills to enhance and upgrad
5- In the production area:
- Encouraging researchers to produce biological pesticides (biocides ) and giving assistance to commercialize them.
- Establishing expertise offices to provide consultations, expertise and fesabilty studies to private sector and agricultural companies.
- Accrediting the plant disease diagnostic laboratories and obtaining the suitable Iso-certificates.

6- In the administration area:
- Determining and distributing the responsibilities in the different administrative sections.
- Automating the payrolls personnel data and stores inventory through being the suitable computer programs.
7- Work organizing:
- Establishing an advisory committee from producers, exporters companies and scientists to put rules and protocols for an exportable agricultural commodities.
- Forming multidisciplinary work teams to coordinate the research priorities and cooperation between our institute and the other institutes and universities.
- Encouraging forming of crop forums or societies from growers, producers, researchers and exporters to enhance marketable and exportable agricultural production.
- A continuous re-evaluation of the different activities based on the quality measures and in coordination with final users such as:
- How useful and beneficial is the results of the conducted research in solving problems.
- How effective is the training and extension system in helping farmers and extension specialists to deal with and solve plant disease problems.
- What is the economical return of the applied activities and what are the required changes and modifications to push forward the process for a successful agricultural policies.