News

Researchers from the Chair of Biochemistry, together with partners from the CASS research network, investigated the question of why provitamin A-rich cassava roots ("yellow cassava") have a reduced starch content. The results have now been published in The Plant Journal (Gutschker et al., 2024). It ...Continue

In addition to heat, late blight is threatening the potato harvest in Europe. In order to protect the harvest, farmers are dependent on plant protection products whose effectiveness and range of application are decreasing due to new EU regulations and the development of resistant and aggressive fung...Continue

On June 7, 2024, three doctoral students had the opportunity to visit the plant breeding and biotechnology company KWS in Einbeck and take part in the TalentCampus. The event allowed us to take a look behind the scenes of the breeding company's research and development departments.

We visited the...Continue

At the end of May, the members of the EU-funded ADAPT project met for a two-day project meeting in Bonn (photo).

Following previous years' network meetings in Brno (CZE), Wageningen (NLD) and Ljubljana (SVN), this was the fourth and final meeting of the European wide academic and industrial proje...Continue

Our latest publication highlights important aspects of the primary metabolism of cassava (Manihot esculenta) by describing the most likely pathway of sugars from source to sink by combining computational, biochemical and anatomical methods. Cassava, unlike potato and other staple crops, is a perenni...Continue

The Chair of Biochemistry invites:

Lecture given by Prof. Dr. Ute Vothknecht from the University of Bonn:

The interplay between ABA, JA and SA during drought stress response in Arabidopsis and potato

Time and location: Thursday, April 18th 2024, 3:30 pm, Lecture hall C, Staudtstr. 5, 91058 ...Continue

The 37th Conference „Molecular Biology of Plants“ took place in Hennef from the 4th until the 7th of march. Two of our PhD students – Yannick Schnauhuber and Lisa Koch – attended the Conference to present their current research.

Lisa Koch gave a talk with the title: “Yield reduction in potato cau...Continue

Over 25 million euros from Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One) is providing approximately 25.8 million euros (28 million US dollars) in funding for an international research project led by FAU: The non-profit organizatio...Continue

On February 21st, 2024, we celebrated the first Doctoral student’s Day within the department of Biology. Many students and employees of the department attended this event to hear about the research conducted by senior PhD candidates from different chairs at the department.

The keynote speaker of ...Continue

Potato is one of the most important staple food crops, consumed by millions of people worldwide. Unfortunately, potato plants display diminished yield in response to heat stress, which is especially problematic in the face of constantly increasing ambient temperatures.

We investigated whether the...Continue

We invite to the lecture given by Prof. Dr. Korbinian Schneeberger, LMU Biocampus, Computational Genetics, Munich, Germany.

Title:  “Using computational genetics to study plant genomes”

Time:         Thursday , October 5th 2023, 2:15 PM

Location:   Lecture Hall C, Staudtstr. 5, 91058 Er...Continue

134. VDLUFA congress in Freising: From 5th to 8th of September 2023, the Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT) hosted the 134. congress of the Vereinigung deutscher landwirtschaftlicher Forschungs- und Untersuchungsanstalten (VDLUFA) in Freising, Germany. Alexander Kaier, PhD student in our Bio...Continue

The future of plant breeding: PhD student participates in workshop How can we breed crops as efficient as possible to sustain food supply in the future? To investigate this research question, Alexander Kaier, PhD student in our Biocomputing Lab, participated in the annual work shop in genomic predi...Continue

Efficient sugar utilization and transition from oxidative to substrate-level phosphorylation in high starch storage roots of African cassava genotypes Cassava's storage roots represent one of the most important sources of nutritional carbohydrates worldwide. Particularly, smallholder farmers in sub...Continue

Viktoriya Vasina came to visit the Biochemistry Chair from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She is a 5th year PhD candidate in the Knoblauch lab, which focuses on studying phloem transport. The topic of her research is identifying proteins that are present in sieve element organe...Continue

On February 16th, 2023, the pupils of the 10f of the secondary school in Herzogenaurach came to our chair for an information and experimentation day. The students have chosen the science branch at their school. The exchange was initiated by a former employee, Julia Lorenz, who now teaches biology an...Continue

We invite to the lecture by Prof. Dr. Michael Knoblauch from the School of Biological Sciences Washington State University, Pullman, USA.

  “New insights on plasmodesma structure function – complex nanostructures with fundamental impacts on plant physiology”

Time:             Tuesd...Continue

On February 11, 2023, numerous graduates of the final year 2022, together with their families, accepted the invitation from the Department of Biology. Over 300 guests attended the event and the presentation of the certificates in lecture hall H11 on Cauerstrasse. The band "Saxophone Connection" unde...Continue

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