Next Generation Sequencing for Virus Discovery, Identification and Food Security.

<p><em>Poster presented at the Young Systematics Conference part of the Systematics Association (http://www.systass.org/)</em></p> <p>Plant disease is a constant threat to food security, plant viruses particularly cause significant damage and insidiously viral diseases currently have no treatment. Correct identification is therefore crucial to deploy effective control strategies. This poster presents the use of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) as new technique offering rapid, universal and unbiased method for virus identification improving upon the limitations of previous identification methods. The Illumina MiSeQ was utilised to sequence plants with unknown infections. Viruses were identified through similarity searching against Genbank and confirmed using phylogentic analyses. Using NGS will allow for new viral discoveries whilst aiding in food security.