Kornelia Smalla PhD

Prof. Smalla is adjunct Professor at the Technical University Braunschweig and Head of the Bacteriology/Microbial Ecology group in the Institute for Epidemiology and Pathogen Diagnostics at JKI. Her long-term interest is the soil and plant microbiome and how it is affected by agricultural management practice. Among others, factors influencing the rhizocompetence, biocontrol or plant growth promoting activity of inoculants and their effects on indigenous rhizosphere microbiota are major research topics in her group. Traditional cultivation-based methods are typically used together with cultivation-independent DNA/RNA based methods to explore the fate and activity of inoculants and their interaction with the plant microbiome of greenhouse or field-grown crops.