Ryan Cantrell spent the summer of 2025 as a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) intern contributing to knowledge about the devastating citrus disease HLB. The undergraduate student worked under the supervision of Assistant Professor Liliana Cano and Biological Scientist Edinson Diaz in the plant pathology laboratory at the Indian River Research and Education Center.
Cantrell contributed to field and lab efforts by collecting citrus leaves from candidate HLB-tolerant rootstocks. Those samples were used to monitor Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the bacterium responsible for HLB, through DNA-based molecular detection methods.
Cano’s lab focuses on applying genome-based tools to develop improved diagnostics and innovative disease management strategies. Her primary research targets economically important crops in Florida, particularly citrus affected by HLB and fungal diseases impacting grapefruit fresh fruit production.
In the lab, Cantrell used key microbiology and molecular biology techniques. They included DNA extraction from infected leaf tissues, DNA quality assessment, gel electrophoresis, quantitative polymerase chain reaction and gene expression data analysis. His results suggest that several of the evaluated citrus rootstocks showed no detectable presence of CLas.
To build on those findings, follow-up studies using root tissues, along with greenhouse and field material, will be carried out in the lab. The project aims to advance the development of HLB–tolerant rootstocks for nursery production in the United States, Cano said.
Cantrell, a microbiology and cell science major, is also pursuing minors in Spanish and bioinformatics. He had prior internships in the UF/IFAS Department of Horticultural Sciences and in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida Atlantic University. He was awarded the 2025 Summer Undergraduate Fellowship by the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Cantrell is also active outside the classroom and lab. Throughout high school and college, he spent about 740 hours volunteering. He hopes his future work takes him back to his hometown of Jupiter, Florida.
Source: UF/IFAS
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