\u201cShakespeare\u2019s Juliet famously asked, \u2018What\u2019s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,\u2019\u201d said Hanu Pappu, Chuey Endowed Chair and Samuel H. Smith Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology<\/a>. \u201cBut when it comes to diseases, names matter. Accurate identification of a pathogen is central to diagnosing a disease, managing an outbreak, or safeguarding crops from infection \u2014 be it COVID-19, avian flu, or a crop pathogen.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington is home to a multibillion-dollar nursery and ornamental plant industry, boasting large-scale commercial operations as well as small family-owned farms that sell cut flowers at local farmers markets.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who has visited Seattle\u2019s Pike Place Market on a weekend must have seen the diversity of cut flowers sold,\u201d Pappu said. \u201cThese include a high-value specialty flower: the dahlia.\u201d<\/p>\n Pappu\u2019s dahlia research program, which is exclusively supported by the Carl F., and James J. Chuey Endowment<\/a> and the American Dahlia Society<\/a>, specializes in studying, identifying, and finding ways to manage viruses that impact crops of the ornamental flower.<\/p>\n \u201cProfessor Pappu\u2019s grower-supported work has revealed novel pathogens, developed new tools, and promoted access to clean plants,\u201d said Raj Khosla, Cashup Davis Family Endowed Dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. \u201cHis program is a unique resource for commercial flower growers and everyone who appreciates the beauty of dahlias.\u201d<\/p>\n Named for the unsightly patches left on foliage, mosaic disease causes costly production losses for growers. Severe cases stunt growth and can prevent the valuable blooms from developing at all.<\/p>\n Grown from long-living bulbs or tubers, or from cuttings from other plants, ornamental plants like dahlias can quickly become perpetual reservoirs for viruses.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s because the mother plant, once infected, passes on the virus through any cuttings, bulbs, or tubers taken from them,\u201d Pappu said. \u201cThe chance that further propagation carries that virus forward is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n New viral diseases arise from time to time, making accurate identification a must. Identification lays the foundation for virus-detecting tests and helps researchers understand how viruses spread.<\/p>\n \u201cWe use that information to come up with strategies to mitigate the diseases,\u201d Pappu said.<\/p>\n One of the two viral variants was first reported in the 1980s. Pappu\u2019s team identified the other nearly 20 years later and began to question where it fit as part of the broader virus family.<\/p>\n Prabu Gnanasekaran, a postdoctoral researcher in Pappu\u2019s lab, and Ying Zhai, a former lab member now at the USDA Agricultural Research Service\u2019s San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center, set out to clarify the relationship. They approached dahlia growers across the country, who provided thousands of samples from infected plants.\u00a0 The researchers sequenced and compared the genomes, finding some significant genetic differences. However, the genetic code in the key regions used for international virus classification are 80% identical.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on the internationally accepted criteria for virus classification and naming, these two meet the criteria for being variants of the same virus,\u201d Gnanasekaran said.<\/p>\n The discovery also showed the breadth of divergence across the viral genome, he added.<\/p>\n \u201cBy resolving the ambiguity about these viruses, we\u2019re improving the scientific foundation for reliable testing, clean-plant certification, and the safe movement of dahlia planting material across state and national borders,\u201d Pappu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PULLMAN, Wash. \u2014 For decades, two different viruses were believed to be responsible for a common, untreatable disease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-405452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Dahlia-red-and-yellow-flower-1024x676.jpg\")
(Photo by Hanu Pappu)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Hanu-Pappu-headshot-scaled-1-750x1024.jpeg\")
Hanu Pappu, Carl F., and James J. Chuey Endowed Chair and Samuel H. Smith Professor<\/p>\n