Dr. Maher Al-Rwahnih took over the reins as Diagnostic and Research Lab Director at Foundation Plant Services (FPS), UC Davis on July 1, 2016. He also serves as vice chair of the NCPN-Fruit Tree Tier 2, is on NCPN-Roses Tier 2 and is actively involved in the NCPN-Sweetpotato virology committee.
Maher (pronounced Ma - her) originally hails from Jordan and spent time in Italy at the University of Bari and came to FPS in 2004 as a post-doc. We are very fortunate to have him in his new position as Lab Director on the FPS Team! We have certainly benefited from his research skills, organizational skills and great negotiating skills with equipment salespeople.
Al-Rwahnih (pronounced al – ra – wa – hnee) was a pioneer in applying Next Generation Sequencing (NGS is now called High Throughput Sequencing (HTS)) technology to a plant (grapevines). This was the first time a plant of any kind was analyzed by HTS. His work will have major benefits for regulatory agencies, clean plant programs and grape growers. His biography is at http://www.apsnet.org/members/awards/Hutchins/Pages/MaherAlRwahnih.aspx