Timothy has a keen interest in space and biology. After having worked as a student in the Research and Development department of Colruyt Group on Vertical farming technology and hydroponics, his ambition to get further into academics grew. In 2020, he graduated as Master of Science in Biology at Ghent University. Following his master thesis, which focused on the a growth-promoting cytochrome P450 78A, he obtained an FWO-grant for a project that builds further on the same topic. His project focuses on unraveling the reaction catalyzed by CYP78A and clarifying its regulatory network, with the aim to acquire knowledge that can lead to the development of applications with beneficial effects on many agricultural crops in a non-GMO manner (e.g. a biostimulant). The project will function as a stepping stone for his future goals, which involve conducting biological research in the context of space.

Matilde Sanches graduated in 2017 as master of Biodiversity and Plant Biotechnology at University of Coimbra, Portugal. During her master thesis, under the guidance of Prof. Jorge Canhoto, she studied developmental epigenetics throughout somatic embryogenesis of tamarillo plant (Solanum betaceum, Cav.), performing experiments and developing skills (particularly immunofluorescence microscopy) at Pilar S. Testillano's lab in CIB-CSIC, Madrid, Spain. After a one-year experience as Project Developer - DIVA project (H2020) and SKAN Platform activities - at INOVISA (Lisbon, Portugal) and at the Centre for Investigation and Transference of Technology to Community Development (CITT - Maputo, Mozambique), she enrolled in the Plants for Life Doctoral Program in 2019, from ITQB NOVA (Lisbon, Portugal). During her PhD project, focussing on the study of quantitative genetics and mechanisms behind water stress tolerance in grass pea (Lathyrus sativus), she had the opportunity to foster a collaboration between Dr. Carlota Vaz Patto's lab (PlantX group, ITQB NOVA, Oeiras, Portugal) and Prof. Frank Van Breusegem'lab (Oxidative Stress Signalling group, PSB-VIB, Ghent, Belgium). Her main scientific interests are I&D in the agronomic sector, particularly stress resilience in plants, the genetics and epigenetics underlying it; and more important, the potential applications of that field of knowledge in crop improvement and breeding programs, with a particular fondness for orphan crops. More recent (but obviously related) passions are statistics, experimental design and data science, and it was in that framework that she recently joint Hilde Nelissen's Systems Biology of Yield group at PSV-VIB (Ghent, Belgium).

I obtained my master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the Ghent University in 2021. During my thesis I worked in the Pauwels lab on the combination of doubled haploid breeding and multiplex gene editing in maize. Later that year, I joined the group of Dirk Inzé and Hilde Nelissen where I worked on the BREEDIT ERC project, with a focus on genotype-phenotype correlation in multiplex edited maize lines. In 2022, I obtained an FWO PhD fellowship and joined the Pauwels lab again. The main focus of my PhD is to improve regeneration in maize with the goal to expand the number of transformable maize inbred lines, while also developing gene editing strategies.

My name is Yasmine and I am a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Hilde Nelissen. In 2019, I obtained a master degree in biochemical engineering technology at Ghent University. I carried out my master dissertation in the Crop Genome Engineering Facility of Laurens Pauwels, where I investigated methods to enhance transformation efficiency in maize by using morphogenic regulators. Additionally, I also explored mutagenesis via transgenerational CRISPR-Cas9 activity. Afterwards, I obtained a VLAIO grant to start my PhD in the Bio-Energy and Bio-Aromatics group of Wout Boerjan, in collaboration with an industrial partner. During my doctoral research, I studied the CCR gene family of the lignin pathway to improve biomass processability for animal feed and biofuel production in maize. This involved generating gene-edited maize lines, followed by evaluation under greenhouse and field conditions. In January 2024, I joined the Plant Growth Dynamics lab of Hilde Nelissen to work on the EU-funded BOOSTER project. Our objective is to develop strategies to improve drought tolerance in maize and teff. My role involves bioinformatic analyses and multiplex genome editing to target cis-elements in non-coding genomic regions associated with drought response. My academic training and industrial exposure have provided me with a robust skill set in molecular biology, genome engineering, cell wall analysis, digestibility testing and phenotyping. I am particularly passionate about exploiting these modern breeding methods to accelerate crop improvement and translating these advancements into practical applications through field trials. What I like most about my job is that I’m part of a fantastic scientific community and the ability to work from lab-based research to field experiments.

I am a Post-doctoral researcher in plant cell and molecular biology in the field of organ growth, crop productivity. After I obtained my master degree of plant biology and biotechnology at Bordeaux university, I graduated with my PhD in 2022 where I studied the molecular mechanisms controlling Tomato fruit organogenesis and fruit size determination in the Flowering, Fruit Development and Environmental Constraints team at INRAe. My PhD consisted in studying the functional role of FW2.2, the protein associated to the major QTL governing fruit weight in tomato. I demonstrated that FW2.2 is associated with Plasmodesmata and is involved in cell-to-cell communication by modifying the callose deposition status, so that the aperture of Plasmodesmata is modified. Since October 2022, I joined the systems biology of yield and the innovative breeding groups to work on the EU-funded BREEDIT project which aims at developing a flexible pipeline that combines multiplex gene editing of genes related to growth and yield-traits and different crossing schemes to generate plants with modified traits. Taking advantages of BREEDIT, I am currently using multiplex genome editing to target Cis-regulatory regions of known negative growth regulators. My academic training and research experiences have provided me an excellent background in multiple domains including plant cell biology, molecular biology, genetic engineering and plant development. I had to adapt to different working environments and study different plant models (Tomato, Tobacco, Arabidopsis thaliana, Brachypodium distachyon and Maize) to carry out my work. I have gained expertise with a lot of different techniques such as molecular cloning (Gateway and Goldengate) and tomato transgenesis, multiplex genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9, Cis-regulatory regions targeting with CRISPR/Cas9, GUS staining, phenotyping, in situ hybridization and microscopy.

PSB - Systems biology of Yield

I am a senior Argentinian postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Profs. Dirk Inzé and Hilde Nelissen at the VIB Ugent Center for Plant Systems Biology (PSB) in Belgium. My primary research interest lies in the study of how gene networks shape plant physiological responses and how this information can be translated into trait improvements in maize. I earned a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and did my thesis under the supervision of Prof. Pablo Cerdán in Fundación Instituto Leloir (Buenos Aires). During my PhD i studied the conservation of flowering mechanisms between Arabidopsis thaliana and the forage crop Medicago sativa (alfalfa) in order to improve its biomass quality. I later did a first postdoc in Prof. Marcelo Yanovsky’s lab where i studied the shade avoidance responses of soybean and alfalfa, aiming to create improved yielding varieties suited for high-density cultivation. Presently i work in BREEDIT, a multidisciplinary ERC funded project combining both gene editing and classical breeding aspects in maize with the objective of improving yield and drought resistance in this crop.

My research career has focused on the central biological question: How do growth processes determine final plant organ size? Initially, I approached this using molecular biology studying Arabidopsis leaf development. As my interest shifted towards applied research, I redirected my focus to maize. What started as translational research to bring knowledge from Arabidopsis to crops and from the lab to the field, gradually developed into a research line with the goal to decipher the instructor networks that govern leaf size, organ growth and ultimately yield in maize. Because plant organ size control is an important yield component that is also severely impacted by climate change, our ultimate goal is to deepen our understanding of the growth-regulatory networks to enhance our success rate to achieve climate-resilient crops.
 
As lecturer of ‘Plant Research Technologies’ and ‘Plant Yield’ within the Advanced Master in Plant Biotechnology, I get the opportunity to enthuse Master students about the possibilities of plant biotechnology to change agriculture.
 
My team and I set out to create an inclusive atmosphere that stimulates critical thinking, creativity, team work, personal development, job satisfaction, personal fulfillment, mutual respect, scientific transparency and research ethics.