Safaa Kumari ( ar, صفاء كوماري; born 1963) is a

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

n born plant virologist. She is known for developing a disease resistant variety of

faba bean ''Vicia faba'', commonly known as the broad bean, fava bean, or faba bean, is a species of vetch, a flowering plant in the pea and bean family Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated as a crop for human consumption, and also as a cover crop. Varieti ...

that is resistant to the

faba bean necrotic yellows virus Faba bean necrotic yellows virus (FBNYV) is a Nanovirus disease of legumes. Range Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Spain and Balearic Is ...

(FBNYV).

Life

She was born in 1963 in Aleppo. She was brought up in

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

and she has several siblings. Between 1982 and 1985 she was at

Aleppo University University of Aleppo ( ar, جَامِعَة حَلَب, Jāmiʿat Ḥalab, also called Aleppo University) is a public university located in Aleppo, Syria. It is the second largest university in Syria after the University of Damascus. During 2005 ...

where she studied in the faculty of Agriculture. She began work looking at a virus that has been spreading from

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

and it affects the important food plants of

lentils The lentil (''Lens culinaris'' or ''Lens esculenta'') is an edible legume. It is an annual plant known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each. As a food crop, the largest produ ...

, faba beans and

chickpeas The chickpea or chick pea (''Cicer arietinum'') is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. Its different types are variously known as gram" or Bengal gram, garbanzo or garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. Chickpea seeds are high ...

. This is devastating for low income families who rely on these beans to be their "poor man's meat". Oddly the cause is linked to climate change. The changing temperatures encourages the aphid population to boom and these aphids spread the virus much more widely. She discovered a faba bean variety that was resistant to faba necrotic yellow virus (FBNYV). She was living in Aleppo during the war in Syria. She had left to attend a conference in Addis Abbaba when she was told that her family were on the run. Her family had been given ten minutes to leave their home. She decided to risk her life by travelling to Damascus and then driving to rescue the disease resistant seeds. The seeds had been stored at her sisters residence and it was in the centre of Aleppo. She collected the seeds and then travelled to Lebanon. Her next task was to take the resistance traits that she had found and transfer them to a productive variety. She immediately set to work in her new home, and also dove into the

yellow rust Wheat yellow rust (''Puccinia striiformis'' f.sp. ''tritici''), also known as wheat stripe rust, is one of the three major wheat rust diseases, along with stem rust of wheat (''Puccinia graminis'' f.sp. tritici) and leaf rust (''Puccinia triti ...

and

stem rust Stem rust, also known as cereal rust, black rust, red rust or red dust, is caused by the fungus ''Puccinia graminis'', which causes significant disease in cereal crops. Crop species that are affected by the disease include bread wheat, durum w ...

situation in Lebanon. During this time she put together definitive evidence that

Ug99 Ug99 is a lineage of wheat stem rust (''Puccinia graminis'' f. sp. ''tritici''), which is present in wheat fields in several countries in Africa and the Middle East and is predicted to spread rapidly through these regions and possibly further afie ...

had not yet reached the country. In 2020, she was recognised in the BBC's 100 Women. Two women from Syria made the list - the other was the film maker

Waad Al Kateab Waad Al-Kateab ( ar, وعد الخطيب; born ) is the pseudonym of a Syrian journalist, filmmaker, and activist. Her documentary, ''For Sama'' (2019), was nominated for four BAFTAs at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards, winning for Best Docu ...

. By this time she was working in Lebanon. Where she worked at the

International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), a member of CGIAR, supported by the CGIAR Fund, is a non-profit agricultural research institute that aims to improve the livelihoods of the resource-poor across the ...

(ICARDA) in the Beqa’a Valley. In the same month as her award, researchers announced that the FBNYV virus had been observed in Spain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kumari, Safaa 1963 births Living people People from Aleppo Syrian virologists BBC 100 Women Syrian women scientists University of Aleppo alumni Syrian phytopathologists