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Plant Molecular Biology, Aarhus University, Denmark
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More than five years ago we wrote about CARB (Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling), a centre of excellence based at University of Aarhus. CARB is still going strong with a total budget of 90 million DKK (12 million €) running till 2017. The centres aim is to understand how polysaccharides exposed on cell surfaces and secreted polysaccharide signal molecules are used in the interaction between cells and organisms. With more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals since 2008, CARB is indeed a centre of excellence, but its Head, professor Jens Stougaard, has more to give. He is also heading the Plant Molecular Biology group which is located at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, at Aarhus University
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Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences (IPM) at UMB, Norway
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As indicated by its name, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) is dedicated to life sciences, but moreover the focus is indeed on plant sciences in particular. The Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences (IPM) is the largest at UMB and it produced no less than 14 PhD doctorates during 2012. The department is organised in seven research groups:- Genetics and plant biology
- Geology
- Urban horticulture and urban greening
- Hydrology and limnology
- Soil
- Environmental chemistry
- Plant production
In this brief overview we will focus on the first, Genetics and plant biology, which is also the biggest with a scientific staff of approximately 65. The research group is headed by professor Åsmund Bjørnstad who has a personal interest in pathogen resistance genes and marker assisted breeding. In a paper from 2012 she and her colleagues showed that resistance to Fusarium head blight in wheat is associated with two easily distinguishable phenotypic features, namely anther extrusion and plant height. This makes phenotypic selection for anther extrusion a valuable and simple means of resistance breeding in wheat
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Lund University, Sweden
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Located at the Southern part of Sweden - in the province of Scania or Skåne - Lund University is the largest university in Scandinavia. It has an astonishing 47,000 students that make up about half of the city's total population of around 100,000 and this is clearly reflected in the culture, nightlife, sports and other activities of Lund. The university is consistently among the top 100 universities in the world and it also holds this fine position in a more narrow ranking considering only natural sciences.
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Copenhagen Plant Science Centre, Denmark
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Plant biology and plant biotechnology are top priorities at University of Copenhagen, but until now research in the area has been divided into two faculties (LIFE and SCIENCE) and four departments (Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Agriculture and Ecology, Forest & Landscape, and Biology) in buildings scattered around the city. Though each of the departments already have a very strong research profile, it was decided in 2010 to further strengthen the field by establishing a new unifying research centre, Copenhagen Plant Science Centre (CPSC). A number of brand new buildings are under construction to house the centre in 2015, but already from the end of 2012 the centre will be inaugurated by fusion of the partner's activities.
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MTT Agrifood Research Finland
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MTT Agrifood Research Finland - or simply MTT - is a governmental research institute under the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. With its headquarter in Jokioinen 100 km northwest of Helsinki and research groups spread around the country at 15 different locations, it employs approximately 750 people. Research activities cover all aspects of agriculture and forestry and are grouped into 8 thematic research programmes and 6 research areas covering key expertises:
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Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, SLU, Sweden
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SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences or Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet) is a university seated under the Ministry for Rural Affairs and, accordingly, is highly focused on research in biological resources and production. With a total staff of 2900, 700 graduate students and 4000 undergraduate students, the university deals with almost all topics related to agriculture, forestry and food industry to environmental questions, veterinary medicine and biotechnology. SLU is divided into four faculties located at four main campuses spread around the country: In this issue of the SPPS Newsletter we will present the Faculty of Landscape Planning, Horticulture and Agricultural Sciences, which is located at the campus in Alnarp in the southernmost part of Sweden
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Cell, Molecular Biology and Genomics Group, NTNU, Norway
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Where Norway starts to narrow, at 63° north, is the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Located in Trondheim with a population of about 165,000, the university's 20,000 students make a significant contribution to the city life. Despite its name, studies at NTNU are not limited to science and technology, so if you are into arts, humanities, music, social sciences, management or economics you need not go any further. Plant biology also has its place here and most research in this field is led by professor Atle Bones.
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Plant Biotechnology, University of Eastern Finland
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University of Eastern Finland is the youngest university in the country and only came to existence in January 2010 after a merger of the two former universities in Kuopio and Joensuu. About 200 km separate the two campuses in each of the two mid-eastern cities: Joensuu close to the Russian border and Kuopio inland at the same latitude. With 14,000 students and an annual budget of €200 million, the university is the third or fourth biggest in Finland, depending on your scale of measurement.
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Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Oslo
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A substantial part of plant research at University of Oslo takes place at Department of Molecular Biosciences, which is situated at the Blindern campus in the northern parts of the city. The Department is divided into four programmes dealing with cell biology, physiology, proteins and genes, respectively. Within the latter, the Gene Programme, six research groups are looking into gene regulation and function using mammalian cell lines, Chlamydomonas, Drosophila and Arabidopsis as model systems.
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Plant science institutes in Estonia
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In late September, SPPS Newsletter had a chance to visit Estonia, so we decided to broaden up our regular Scandinavian research institute-section to include the Baltic neighbor. Estonia has a strong position in plant research, which is carried out at several locations. The capital, Tallinn, is home to Tallinn University of Technology where Erkki Truve is Head of the Chair at Department of Gene Technology. Moving 150 km southeast will take you to Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute, which is an autonomous research and development institute under the Ministry of Agriculture.
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Department of Biology, University of Tromsø
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Well above the arctic circle in Norway you can find University of Tromsø and no other university in the world is closer to the Northpole. Historically, it dates back to 1826 where 'Høgskolen i Tromsø' was founded and to 1968 where 'Universitetet i Tromsø' was established. These two institutions eventually merged last year and formed the present university. It has around 9.000 students and 2.500 employees, which means that 17% of the population of Tromsø is directly engaged with the university. The six faculties cover most aspects of science and within the Faculty of Science and Technology is the Department of Biology with its three research groups: - Plant Physiology and Microbiology
- Ecological Botany
- Ecological Zoology
The Plant Physiology and Microbiology group has a scientific staff of around 25 and is headed by Professor Mette Svenning. She is working primarily with symbiotic nitrogen fixating as well as methane oxidizing bacteria native to the arctics. Like many of the other research groups her work take a Nordic approach and studies the adaptations to light, temperature and other climatic characteristics of the far north.
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Department of Botany, Stockholm University, Sweden
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Plant biology has a very prominent position at Stockholm University where around 100 scientist are engaged at the Department of Botany. The department is situated in what used to be King Karl XI's royal game park and the area - now known as Lilla Frescati named after the Italian city of Frascati - is still an urban park. The first plant scientists moved in in 1964 and have since expanded their activities considerably.
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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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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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