Jan van Kan

Jan van Kan is an Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Phytopathology, Wageningen University & Research, specializing in molecular plant-microbe interactions. His research focuses on fungal pathogenesis mechanisms, particularly in Botrytis cinerea and Monilinia species, investigating virulence factors, plant immune responses, and environmental impacts on disease development.

Research interests include:

• Molecular mechanisms of fungal effectors and plant immunity suppression
• Climate change impacts on plant-pathogen interactions
• Genomic approaches to disease resistance in crops
• Cell death pathways in plant-fungal interactions
• Secondary metabolite functions in pathogenesis

Dr. van Kan currently supervises PhD students working on:

• Susceptibility gene targeting against necrotrophs in tomatoes
• Pear scab biology and management
• Infection structure development in pathogenic fungi

He leads multiple research projects including effector-based screening for lily resistance and onion genome exploitation against fungal pathogens. His laboratory contributes to genomic databases with fungal genome sequencing datasets.