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Plant Functional Genetics and Genomics @ GELIFES, University of Groningen
Hello and Welkom!
Hello and Welkom!
The research of our group focuses on specialized metabolism in plants and the many ways we can utilize those plant natural products. Currently, we investigate the mechanisms that govern environmental stress tolerance in different crops by integrating functional genomics, metabolomics, as well as protein biochemical and genetic approaches with a focus on terpene metabolic networks. Additional interests of ours are the interactions of plants with their environment and the advancement of regenerative farming.
News
News
September 2025: Congratulations to the whole team involved in the 'Stacked Scattering'article published in AJB
August 2025: We are very happy with all the great submissions that have now been published as part of our co-edited Special Issue 'Advances in analyzing and engineering plant metabolic diversity' in APPS
April 2025: Tianci joined our group in April 2025 as a postdoc working on linking potato genotypes to root exudates to microbiomes
March 2025: Adam joined our lab as a postdoc working on terpenoids under salinity stress
Happy New Year! Please check out our WISE meeting dates in 2025 and join us for good chats and free vegan & vegetarian pizza. 🍕👩🏽🔬
July 2024: Kira received an NWO Veni grant, which will allow us to work on exploring and engineering diterpene synthases for salt-resistant crops
March 2023: Larissa joined the group as a PhD student working on Color & Chemistry in plant-insect interactions
September 2023: Super excited to receive funding from NWO to study the visual and chemical ecology of flowers! Look here for the PhD advert.
September 2023: Come and taste some plant-based food of the future at Zpannend Zernike on September 30!
July 2023: Join us for our Plant Defense symposium at Botany 2023!
News Archive
News Archive
A warm thank you to all colleagues, collaborators, and students for a great year and a happy and healthy 2023!
November 2022: New article in Synthetic Biology highlighting the latest strides in heterologous biosynthesis of plant natural products: https://doi.org/10.1093/synbio/ysac028
August 2022: We discovered a new group of drought-related molecules in switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) termed panicoloids: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.18443
July 2022: Kira receives the Arthur C. Neish Young Investigator Award by the PSNA!
May 2022: Our new paper on Virus-Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in switchgrass is out: https://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13007-022-00903-0
May 2022: Waddenfonds is funding our research on regenerative farming in saline areas!
April 2022: Our new manuscript where we combine transcriptomics and metabolomics to uncover drought-related specialized metabolites in switchgrass is now on bioRxiv: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.20.488672v1
February 2022: I am giving a talk for the #PhytoChem Talks seminar series! For registration and to access the recording click here.
I will be starting my own group at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES) in February 2022! Stay tuned for more information!
September 2021: Our story on the discovery of a group of furano-diterpenoids in switchgrass is out: doi.org/10.1111/tpj.15492
April 2021: The California Aggie newspaper published an article about my 'Mothers in the Academic Pipeline' workshop: https://theaggie.org/2021/04/16/workshop-fosters-solidarity-among-student-parents-strives-to-retain-women-with-children-in-the-academic-pipeline/
On April 9, 2021, 11:00 - 1:30 pm, I will be hosting a 'Mothers in the Academic Pipeline' event online. Registration is free!
I'm excited to speak to the U.S. Congress as part of a briefing about the impact of Covid-19 on research projects and early career researchers (ERCs).
Check out my talk at the German Conference on Synthetic Biology (GCSB 2020)
Our review on genomics-enabled analysis of specialized metabolism in bioenergy crops is out in Synthetic Biology: doi.org/10.1093/synbio/ysaa005
Congratulations to Yuxuan for receiving a Dean's Circle Summer Fellowship!
I am excited to be selected as a Professors for the Future Fellow 2020-2021
I am happy to announce that I have received a fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to work on improving the stress tolerance in the bioenergy crop switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) by investigating and engineering terpene metabolic networks (gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/425991814 )
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