BIOLOGY students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines won the Best Oral Presenter Award at the Asian Mycology Congress recently held in Busan, South Korea.

Rommel Aban, Abigail Indong and Alethea Lopez presented their research titled “Validation of Colletotrichum asianum Detection: A Comparative Study between PUP DETECT LAMP Assay Kit and Conventional PCR.”

The research aims to validate the performance of the recently developed PUP DETECT LAMP Assay Kit against Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Both methods detect Colletotrichum asianum (C.asianum) in Philippine carabao mangoes.

“This study involves a comparative analysis of both methods’ sensitivity and specificity and explores the potential for PDLAK to serve as a new gold standard for fungal pathogen detection of C.asianum in carabao mangoes,” PUP said, quoting Lopez.

Lopez said C.asianum silently infects healthy mango plant tissues, remaining symptomless until the post-harvest stage when it causes black, rotten-like spots on mango skins.

“In the case of C.asianum, it infects healthy mango plant tissues as an endophyte, and the infection’s visible effects are typically most pronounced during the post-harvest stage,” she said.