Juliane

Biochemist Daan Swarts of Wageningen University and Research has been appointed EMBO Young Investigator, which means that he is now part of a group of promising young scientists within molecular biology. Together with 23 other junior researchers, Swarts will receive financial support, resources and other forms of support for the next four years so that he will be able to establish himself as a leader in the field. Swarts’s group conducts research into the immune system of bacteria and, according to organisation EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation), the group has the potential to make a major impact in its field [...]

Daan Weits from Utrecht University is one of 408 the successful applicant for the ERC grant 2022. His research proposal "Low oxygen, key ingredient of the plant stem cell niche?" was granted with 1,5 million euros. The project LOKI A lack of oxygen such as during a flood is bad news for a plant. But preliminary research by Weits shows that low oxygen concentrations can also play an important role in the growth and development of plants. He found that stem cells, cells that can still form into all other types of plant cells, have a lower concentration of oxygen than [...]

Dr. Roeland Berendsen from the Plant-Microbe Interaction group at the Utrecht University receives funding  for his proposal: "Sequence-based POTato Microbiome tools for microbiome-optimized potatoes". More information about the proposal: Potato is one of the most important food crops, but its production greatly depends on the use of agrochemicals. The plant microbiome supports plant growth and health and microbiome-assisted crop systems can reduce the use of agrochemicals. In this project, we will link sequencing-based microbiome fingerprints from seed potato tubers to the vitality and health of the potato crop that emerges from them. We will identify and isolate potato vitality- and [...]

Harro Bouwmeester, Chair of Plant Hormone Biology at the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences at the University of Amsterdam receives for the proposal  "The Engineering of low germination stimulant production to control witchweed infection in maize in Sub-Saharan Africa" the ERC Proof of Concept Grant. Congratulations. The ERC PoC Grants aim at maximising the value of the excellent research that the ERC funds, by funding further work (i.e. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects. More information can be found here.