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Programme

DAY 1 - MONDAY

SEPTEMBER 22, 2025

“Aldo Moro" hall - Law Department of the University of Bari Aldo Moro
Piazza Cesare Battisti, 1 - BARI, ITALY

08:30 - 09:30 - Registration
09:30 - 09:40 - Opening - Welcome to the event
09:40 - 10:20 - OPENING LECTURE
Viroids: The Archetype of subviral pathogens and RNA-regulators - Prof. Detlev Riesner
10:20 - 11:00 - Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:40 - SESSION I
Plant-viroid interaction and pathogenesis I (Chairs: Jernej Jakše - Puri Lisón)
  • 11:00 - 11:40
  • Keynote Lecture Understanding the role of host factors in Pospiviroid infectivity – Kriton. K. Kalantidis (K1)
  • 11:40 - 12:00
  • Hop latent viroid attenuates pathogenicity by suppressing RNA silencing machinery in cannabis and hop plants – Charith Raj Adkar-Purushothama (OC1)
  • 12:00 - 12:20
  • A master phosphoswitch relays plant immune signaling triggered by potato spindle tuber viroid – Ying Wang (OC2)
  • 12:20 - 12:40
  • Apple scar skin viroid infection activates phloem-based defense response during infection – Savita Chaudhary (OC3)
12:40 - 15:00 - LUNCH and poster session
15:00 - 17:10 - SESSION II
Diagnosis and epidemiology (Chairs: Dijana Škorić – Michael Hagemann)
  • 15:00 - 15:20
  • Sequence variation of coconut cadang-cadang viroid in oil palm: insights from orange spotting symptom expression – Ganesan Vadamalai (OC4)
  • 15:20 - 15:40
  • Towards field-ready detection of CBCVd in hop using CRISPR/Cas12a and RT-RPA – Tanja Gucek (OC5)
  • 15:40 - 16:00
  • Impact of brewing processes on the stability and infectivity of citrus bark cracking viroid in hops – Sebastjan Radišek (OC6)
16:00 - 16:30 - Coffee break and poster session
  • 16:30 - 16:50
  • Emerging viroid disease in ‘Saiwaihong’ apple in China and transcriptome analysis of dapple and scar apples – Zhixiang Zhang (OC7)
  • 16:50 - 17:10
  • Citrus bark cracking viroid infecting pistachio (Pistacia vera) trees in Turkey – Nihal Buzkan (OC8)
17:30 - Guided visit to the old city

DAY 2 - TUESDAY

SEPTEMBER 23, 2025

“Aldo Moro" hall - Law Department of the University of Bari Aldo Moro
Piazza Cesare Battisti, 1 - BARI, ITALY

09:00 - 10:40 - SESSION III
Hepatitis delta like RNAs, ambiviruses and Obelisks (Chairs: Marcos De la Peña - Massimo Turina)
  • 09:00 - 09:40
  • Keynote Lecture Obelisks: Viroid-like colonists of human microbiomes – Ivan. N. Zheludev (K2)
  • 09:40 - 10:00
  • Deltaviruses spread through a viral Trojan Horse – Karim Majzoub (OC9)
  • 10:00 - 10:20
  • Fusarium graminearum ambivirus 1 requires ORF-B for replication and attenuates its fungal host pathogenicity – Yi Guo (OC10)
  • 10:20 - 10:40
  • Woodchuck and deer Hepatitis Delta-like agents show distinct replication, innate immune activation and IFN-resistance compared to human Hepatitis D Virus – Gnimah Eva Gnouamozi (OC11)
10:40 - 11:20 - Coffee break and poster session
11:20 - 13:00 - SESSION IV
Biodiversity of viroid-like RNAs: viroid-like RNAs emergence (Chairs: Shifang Li – Michela Chiumenti)
  • 11:20 - 12:00
  • Keynote Lecture Discovery of novel plant viroids (Pospiviroidae family) and viroid-host associations through planetary data mining – Marcos de la Peña (K3)
  • 12:00 - 12:20
  • Establishing a reverse genetic system for a viroid-like element from Trichoderma spirale – Cristina Formiglia (OC12)
  • 12:20 - 12:40
  • Reservoirs of ancestral Deltaviruses found in water molds – Massimo Turina (OC13)
  • 12:40 - 13:00
  • Identification and molecular characterization of new types of viroid-like RNAs: zetaviruses and betaviruses – Nadia Serale (OC14)
13:00 - 13:40 - LUNCH
14:00 - 14:40 - Poster session (PhD students MSCA doctoral network project ViroiDoc)
14:40 - 17:50 - SESSION V
Plant viroid interaction and pathogenesis II (Chairs: Charith Raj Adkar-Purushothama – Ying Wang)
  • 14:40 - 15:20
  • Keynote Lecture pending title – Prof. Teruo Sano (K4)
  • 15:20 - 15:40
  • Salicylic Acid modulates volatile organic compound profiles during CEVd Infection in tomato plants – Marc Balanzá (OC15)
  • 15:40 - 16:00
  • Antiviral immunity and suppression by RNA viruses – Manfred Heinlein (OC16)
  • 16:00 - 16:20
  • Exploring extracellular vesicles (EVs) during viral and viroid infections – Konstantina Katsarou (OC17)
16:20 - 16:50 - Coffee break and poster session
  • 16:50 - 17:10
  • Small RNA-mediated host regulation in citrus bark cracking viroid-infected hop plants – Michael Hagemann (OC18)
  • 17:10 - 17:30
  • Role of small RNAs in disease symptom recovery – Laura Elvira González (OC19)
  • 17:30 - 17:50
  • Decoding hop–viroid interactions: a transcriptomic approach to CBCVd resistance – Helena Volk (OC20)
19:30 - Social dinner at “Corte di Torrelonga” (by bus)

DAY 3 - WEDNESDAY

SEPTEMBER 24, 2025

“Aldo Moro" hall - Law Department of the University of Bari Aldo Moro
Piazza Cesare Battisti, 1 - BARI, ITALY

09:00 - 10:20 - SESSION VI
Replication and RNA structure (Chairs: Konstantina Katsarou – Beatriz Navarro)
  • 09:00 - 09:40
  • Keynote Lecture Structural insights into the remodeled RNA polymerase II complex on RNA template – Ying Wang (K5)
  • 09:40 - 10:00
  • Detection and characterization of viroid replication intermediates in hop using nanopore sequencing – Jernej Jakše (OC21)
  • 10:00 - 10:20
  • Exploring RNA modifications in viroids: detection of N⁶-methyladenosine (m6A) in citrus exocortis viroid – Michela Chiumenti (OC22)
10:20 - 11:00 - Coffee break
11:00 - 12:00 - SESSION VII
Biotechnology (Chairs: José Antonio Daròs – Sebastjan Radišek)
  • 11:00 - 11:20
  • Harnessing citrus viroids as natural dwarfing agents for economic optimization in high-density citrus orchards – Giorgios Vidalakis (OC23)
  • 11:20 - 11:40
  • Optimization of the viroid-double-self-splicing-intron system to produce recombinant RNA in Escherichia coli – Diego Palpacelli (OC24)
  • 11:40 - 12:00
  • Synthetic circular RNAs and their potential use in plant protection – Timo Schlemmer (OC25)
12:00 - 12:30 - Concluding remarks - Francesco Di Serio