News

This beautiful photo was submitted by Julia Eydam to the "Blattgeflüster" Photo Contest. Julia does research at the Chair of Biochemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Uwe Sonnewald works here with various crops such as cassava, sugar beet and po...Continue

Markus Ingold, a master student from the Biocomputing Lab, recently returned from a three-month research internship at the North Dakota State University (NDSU).

In the group of Dr. Brent Hulke (Sunflower Biology, US Department of Agriculture), he performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) o...Continue

The image of flowers of Solanum pinnatisectum, a wild potato species native to central Mexico, infected with GFP expressing Potato virus X(PVX) has been selected for the 2023 cover of the Journal of Plant Physiology.

Tagging the PVX with a Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) allows monitoring of the ...Continue

... to the lecture by Jessica van Harsselaar.

As part of her doctoral procedure, Ms. Jessica van Harsselaar gives a half-hour scientific lecture on the subject:
"Phenotypic and gene expression analysis of potato (Solanum tuberosum) subjected to intermittent abiotic stress"
Time: Friday, January...Continue

The year 2022 celebrates a historical discovery in the field of genetics because it marks the 200th birthday of the “father of modern genetics”, Gregor Mendel. Even though Mendel is famous for its experiments on pea plants his discovery of segregation resulting in the infamous “Mendel’s Laws” was an...Continue

After a three-year break due to the Covid pandemic, the “XVII International Conference on the Plant Family of Solanaceae” took place from 1st till 5th of November in Thessaloniki, Greece. Many important crops belong to this so-called nightshade family such as tomato, potato, tobacco, pepper and eggp...Continue

After a one-year delay due to the pandemic, the International Conference of the German Society for Plant Sciences was able to take place in Bonn in August of this year. Here, all the latest findings from plant science are presented, which were under the motto "Plant science for a sustainable future"...Continue

After pandemic years were no annual works outing was possible we gathered in the green hills near Ebermannstadt for a hiking tour which lead us on a 6 mile long Planet trail. We enjoyed a great barbecue event at the Sonnewald home in the evening.Continue

The Cassava Source-Sink consortium was able to hold its first in persona meeting in Bonn Bad-Godesberg since the start of the pandemic. International experts in plant biotechnology, plant metabolism, plant development and phenotyping gathered near the beautiful Rhine River to exchange new results fr...Continue

In 1866, Gregor Mendel identified, when performing his famous experiments with peas, that some traits always show correlations with other traits e.g. plants with colored seed coats always exhibited colored flowers and leaf axils. This observation led to the discovery of a phenomenon known as pleiotr...Continue

Under natural conditions, photosynthesis has to be adapted to fluctuating light intensities. Leaves exposed to strong light shed excess light energy in the form of heat at Photosystem II (PSII) through a process called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). During the rapid transition from light to shad...Continue

The countdown is on, only two weeks left until the sixth international Plant Vascular Biology Conference in Berlin. The conference with about 150 participants is organized by the Biochemistry Chair together with the Universities of Würzburg and Hamburg and the MPI_MPP in Golm.

A  great program an...Continue

Luisa Becker, a master student from the Biocomputing lab, is at the Colorado University (CU) in Boulder, CO, USA for a three-month research internship right now. In Boulder, Luisa is working in Prof. Dr. Nolan Kane’s lab (Department for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), and she tries to better unde...Continue

CASS launches fourth confined cassava field trial

Article by Dr. Wolfgang Zierer, CASS scientific coordinator

The Cassava Source Sink project has successfully planted its fourth cassava field trial in Taichung, Taiwan in March 2022, despite the difficult global situation.

In an internationa...Continue

Sindy Gutschker, one of Biocomputing Lab PhD students, is for a six weeklong research period at the Boyce-Thompson-Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. In the US, Sindy will learn new methods from the fields of genomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics.

The main goal of her research at...Continue