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Global Plant Council - Research to save the planet
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Representatives for 16 plant science societies met this summer in Honolulu, Hawaii and established the Global Plant Council, which has the ambitious goal to deliver research to save the planet. Among the plant societies taking this demanding step was SPPS, so we take the liberty to present the new Global Plant Council under our regular section Scandinavian research institute. SPPS was represented by council member Tom Hamborg Nielsen who is associate professor at University of Copenhagen, and SPPS Newsletter had the chance to meet him. You can read the interview below, but first we will give you a brief description of the thoughts that laid the ground for the Global Plant Council.
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Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science, Uppsala University, Sweden
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Photosynthesis and other photochemical reactions are key to most activities at the Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science at Uppsala University in Sweden. Artificial photosynthesis is the common theme that connects the approximately 50 scientists - 15 senior scientists, 10 postdocs and 20 PhD students - who are engaged in a number of highly interdisciplinary project groups looking at the chemical processes that will ultimately be required to harvest solar energy in a form that can be readily used by mankind.
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PUMPKIN, Centre for Membrane Pumps in Cells and Disease, Denmark
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Some goals are just too ambitious to meet for a single research group. Deciphering the 3 dimensional structure of complex proteins not only requires the expertise in x-ray crystallography but also a unique knowledge of the proteins biochemistry and the molecular biological processes it participates in. Bearing this in mind, PUMPKIN, Centre for Membrane Pumps in Cells and Disease, was established in 2007 as a highly interdisciplinary research centre funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The PUMPKIN laboratories are situated both at the University of Aarhus and the University of Copenhagen, and their research is focused on five ion pumps that are fundamental to life and are present in all cells of either plants, animals and bacteria. These are the P-type ATPases pumping either sodium/potassium, proton/potassium, calcium, protons or heavy metals over the the plasma membrane or internal membranes.
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Wood Development Group, Helsinki
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Within reach of the vast Finnish woodlands, the Wood Development Group resides at the Institute of Biotechnology at Helsinki University. The group is headed by Ykä Helariutta and comprises currently 5 postdocs, 7 graduate students and 2 technicians as well as a number of under-graduate students and occasional visitors. Their common interest is the genetic and molecular basis of wood development, and although the research is of fundamental character it contributes with valuable knowledge for the forest industry on how trees can be grown and their wood processed.
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Plastid AS, University of Stavanger, Norway
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Most of the research in natural sciences at the University of Stavanger is related to chemistry, and this is no coincidence as the rich Norwegian oil- and gasfields in the North Sea are not far away. But some room has been spared for plant sciences and last year this resulted in a biotech spin-off company, Plastid AS. The company expresses proteins in chloroplasts of transgenic plants that have been subject to plastid transformation. The aim is to produce known proteins for research, aqua cultures, feed producers and the pharmaceutical industry as well as to design novel proteins for specific uses.
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Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden
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The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - or SLU, its Swedish abbreviation, as they like to call themselves in all languages - is a large research entity with around 2600 employees in four main locations. The strategic areas comprise Food, Animals, Forests, Rural and Urban development and includes a large proportion of the country's best plant research groups. Some of these are located in Umeå at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, which has been covered in a previous article in SPPS Newsletter. The other center for plant research at SLU is the Department of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, which is located in Uppsala.
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CARB - Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling, Aarhus, Denmark
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Less than a year ago, CARB was announced as a new Centre of Excellence by the Danish National Research Foundation. CARB (Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling) is headed by Professor Jens Stougaard at University of Aarhus, and most researchers from the new centre come from his group at the Department of Molecular Biology. However, Professor Knud Jørgen Jensen from University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Professor Herman Spaink from University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and Professor Clive Ronson from University of Otago (New Zealand) do also participate.
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Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology, Turku, Finland
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If you ever go visit someone in outer space, remember to stop by at Turku and pick up some flowers or other photosynthetic organisms. One of the many aspects of plant biology they study is namely the suitability of higher plants and microalgae for use as biological life support systems under the harsh conditions on Mars or other distant destinations in space.
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NARC, Norwegian Arabidopsis Research Centre
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Norway has committed itself to the new omics technologies. Ten national functional genomics platforms have been established through the Norwegian Research Council's Functional Genomics (FUGE) initiative. The platforms are responsible for developing state-of-the-art technologies within their fields and share this expertise with other scientists so they can perform the most advanced genomic research.
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Göteborg University, Sweden
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Göteborg is the second largest town in Sweden, but its university is the largest in the whole of Scandinavia. With 51.000 students, 5.221 employees, 8 faculties and 70 departments it is uniquely wide-ranging and offers the most comprehensive selection of courses in Sweden. The university dates back to 1891 and experienced rapid expansion during the 1950s and 1960s - increasing the number of students from only 500 to 21.000 in two decades.
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TRAP LABS (Transport Physiology Laboratories), Copenhagen
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Fundamental to all plants is the ability to take up nutrients from the soil and transport them along with other solutes to whatever part of the plant they are needed. At TRAP LABS, these basic physiological processes have been the focus for intense research since Michael Gjedde Palmgren joined KVL (The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University) as a Professor in 1998.
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Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB), Oslo
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Founded in 1859 as Norges Landbrukshøgskole (NLH or Agricultural University of Norway), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences emerged in 2005 after a reorganization that gave it recognition as a real, research based university. Its historic roots attached in agriculture, the research at Universitetet for Miljø- og Biovetenskap (UMB) - as it is called in the local language - focuses on quality, technology and environmental friendliness of agri- and aquaculture.
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Plant Signal Research, University of Helsinki
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If you want to know anything about Finnish research in plant molecular biology you should definitely talk to Professor Tapio Palva who is heading the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Plant Signal Research.
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Lund University, Sweden
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When Denmark gave up Skåne, Halland and Blekinge - the southernmost provinces of modern Sweden - in 1658, the Swedish government decided to celebrate the reunion by establishing a university in the region, so as to minimize the Danish influence.
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Plant Biotech Denmark, Copenhagen
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Plant Biotech Denmark (PBD) is not a typical research institute. In fact, it has only two employees and you will have a hard time finding just a single Petri dish or Eppedorf tube.
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The NTNU Plant Genetics Group, Trondheim
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Well below the polar circle, where Norway narrows into a thin land strip, in the city of Trondheim, is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. Despite the city has only 150.000 inhabitants, the university has around 20.000 students and 3500 employees.
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Plant Stress Group, University of Helsinki
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Ozone not only gives the forest a clean and fresh smell, it is also an air pollutant that mimics plant-pathogen interactions and induce cell death in plants.
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Umeå Plant Science Centre
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By the end of the 1990's, two of the strongest experimental plant research departments in Sweden were the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) in Umeå and the Department of Plant Physiology at Umeå University.
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PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology
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From its very beginning, PlaCe was intended to be a center of excellence and this has certainly come true. PlaCe - Center for Molecular Plant Physiology - provides research of the highest international standard and is highly competitive: more than 200 articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals since the launch six years ago.
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