The National Institute of Biology is a partner in EU project Valitest (https://www.valitest.eu) which aims to improve plant pathogen diagnostics. Validation is essential to provide information on the performance of the tests that are used in diagnostic. One of the ways to gather validation data beyond a single laboratory are test performance studies (TPS). Six different pathogens will be included in the first round of TPSs in the project: Erwinia amylovora, Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii, citrus tristeza virus, plum pox virus, Fusarium circinatum and Bursaphelenchus xylophilus.

The National Institute of Biology is organizing TPSs for Erwinia amylovora and Pantoea stewartii subsp. stewartii. The aim is to evaluate further tests for their detection in symptomatic plant samples and in maize seeds, respectively.

Important: If you are not a Valitest project partner and as the project’s budget does not allow any external funding, the participation to the TPS will be at your own cost (consumables, chemicals, reagents) with only critical reagents provided (e.g. primers and probes). As a participant to the TPS, you would receive the evaluation report and you would be associated to the results exploitation.

Are you interested in participating? Please, see invitation letter for further details and participation information form. Using the latter, you can express your interest and provide information needed to select final participants based on a set of pre-defined criteria agreed upon within the project. Thank you.

Fit-for-purpose tests matter!