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Melissa Leeggangers, postdoc at the plant stress resilience group of Prof. Rashmi Sasidharan, receives the ENW-XS grant for her research proposal. This grant is intended to support promising ideas and to facilitate innovative and more speculative initiatives. The proposed research is ground-breaking and high-risk . More about the proposal of Leeggangers: It’s all in the genes: Seed dormancy depth as a predictive indicator for abiotic stress resilience in plants. With climate change threatening food security, there is a high demand for developing climate-resilient plants. To accelerate this elaborate breeding process, the development of predictive indicators for stress resilience is essential. [...]

Ruy Kortbeek , former PhD candidate at the Plant Physiology department of the UvA, receives the Rubicon. He defended his thesis in October 2022 and started recently his postdoc at the Biochemistry department of Purdue, in the lab of prof. Natalia Dudareva. With the rubicon he will will be working on the regulation of precursor availability during terpene biosynthesis in plants. More information about his topic: Defense compounds for crop protection In nature, plants produce compounds that help them protect themselves against pest insects, fungi and harmful bacteria. The researcher is investigating how plants regulate the production of these compounds. [...]

Rieu’s research focuses on plants and how they cope with climate change - especially the increasingly frequent heatwaves. “Such periods of high temperatures are detrimental for plant fertility, causing them to produce fewer seeds and fruits. We look at the plants’ defence mechanisms and try to figure out why some plants can withstand heat better than others. The insights that are gained help to make agriculture and horticulture more sustainable and climate-proof, and improve food security,” says Rieu. He maintains that this research will continue to have great relevance in the coming years. “When a heatwave coincides with the flowering [...]

After 25 years, Marcel Dicke (Entomology, WUR) will step down as chair of the educational committee as of September 1st. Marcel has chaired this committee since 1999. In the last 25 years he has evaluated and approved more than 1000 EPS TSP’s and certificates! And he stood at the basis of the EPS course programme together with the members of the educational committee. As chair of the educational committee Marcel was also member of the EPS board. On behalf of the graduate school we would like to thank Marcel for the immense contribution he made to EPS in the last [...]

  Wientjes receives the M-grant of the NWO Open Competition Domain Science. M-grants are intended for realising curiosity-driven, fundamental research of high quality and/or scientific urgency.   Mapping photosynthetic light harvesting and light acclimation in three dimensions Dr. Emilie Wientjes (WUR) Revealing photosynthetic regulation at the nanoscale - Plants and algae use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars. The light is harvested in a heavy folded membrane, called the thylakoid, that sits inside the chloroplast. What the 3D structure of the thylakoid membrane is and how this structure can change under the influence of light is thus [...]

"HEAT: High temperature Effect on Aradiposis and Tomato seed quality" is the name of the proposal that was awarded to Leonie Bentsink. It is based on a proposal written by Lars Barkermans under the supervision of Mariana Silva Artur and Leónie Bentsink and original submitted to the EPS talent programme. Abstract Seeds are the starting material of agriculture. Climate changes, especially high temperatures, affect seed quality. In this proposal we aim at investigating the effect of high temperature on seed quality. We aim at studying if effects of high temperature can be transferred to the harvested seeds by means of seed treatments. We [...]