Plant Molecular Engineering Group

The world population is increasing by around 100 million per year and is expected to be over 10 billion by 2050. Therefore, doubling the food produced from the same amount of arable land is required. Crop yield losses could reach as high as 70% due to biotic (eg. pathogens) and abiotic stresses (eg. drought and cold) plants face. Engineering plants to withstand such stresses therefore could have a dramatic effect on yield and stability of food production. However, most of the trades we would like to improve or engineer are highly regulated and complex in nature. Understanding the complexity and how the individual components of these trades are regulated is of fundamental importance to genetically engineer these traits in plants.

Therefore our research area mainly deals with understanding and improving plant stress tolerance as well as developing and improving biotechnological tools and their biosafety standards to achieve these goals.