Associated scientists
Sten Stymne, Per Hofvander, Li-Hua Zhu and Inger Åhman are group leaders at the Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology at SLU Alnarp. Their research includes studies of molecular mechanisms underlying plant oil biosynthesis and the carbon flow from starch to oil, genetic modification of important traits such as the rooting ability, early flowering, starch and oil qualities, and plant breeding for increased plant resistance.
Faculty Professor Rodomiro Ortiz focuses his research on basic, strategic and applied undertakings in crop improvement. His breeding efforts are concentrated on the utilization of wild species and landraces for the development of elite progenitors and cultivars adapted to the environmental conditions.
Hilde Nybom together with senior scientists Kimmo Rumpunen and Ibrahim Tahir lead the work at SLU Balsgård. The research is focused on fruit and berry quality including health-related properties, and on the control of resistance against various fungal diseases (apple, sea buckthorn) and gall mites (black currants).
Leif Bülow's group at Pure and Applied Biochemistry at LTH focuses on genetic engineering applied on plant systems.
2 'Post-harvest' – product quality and new products
Olov Sterner's group at Lund University studies bioactive secondary metabolites.
Patrick Adlercreutz' group works with enzymatic reactions for example to tailor lipids and production of prebiotics.
Federico Gómez research focus on processing concepts based on the application of pulsed electric fields and minimal processing of vegetables and fruits.
Rajni Hatti Kaul works on biotechnology solutions for production of chemicals and biomaterials, e.g. conversion of renewable feedstocks into value added products.
Henrik Stålbrand's group focuses on the enzymology of hemicellulase hydrolysis, which has important applications in the food/feed and pulp/paper industries.
Eva Johanssons research group work with product-quality of crops for food feed and industry products and for use in a bio-refinery concept
3 Abiotic stress
Per Kjellbom and Urban Johanson study various aspects of aquaporins and abiotic stress in plants.
Allan Rasmusson's research focuses on the mitochondrion and redox signalling in plants. This research is part of the Molecular Plant Biology Group at Lund University,
Cecilia Emanuelsson's group studies among other things heat-shock proteins in plants, how they interact and can increase plant stress tolerance.
4 Plant–microbe interactions
Pål Axel Olsson and collegues work on plant-microbial networks in grasslands focusing on carbon cycling and diversity and ecophysiology of mycorrhizal fungi.
The plant resistance group led by Erik Andreasson at SLU Alnarp studies how plants defend themselves against oomycetes and fungi and focuses on Phytophthora infestans and Alternaria infection in potato.
Åsa Lankinen focuses on ecological, evolutionary and genetic aspects of plant systems, exploring e.g. plant stress responses and pollen competition in the pistil.
Dag Ahrén and Anders Tunlid are both part of Microbial Ecology at Lund University have interests in microbial genomics and bioinformatical solutions..
The group of Henrik Jönsson's main interest is to develop models for multicellular develpmental systems within the emerging field of Computational Morphodynamics. In his group Carl Troein studies the function and evolutionary origins of gene regulatory systems, in particular the circadian clock of plants.
Georg Carlsson performs research about the symbiotic interactions between legumes and rhizobia and their implications on N dynamics from the rhizosphere to the cropping system scales.
5 Plant–plant and plant–insect interactions
Ylva Hillbur and Peter Witzgall both at Chemical Ecology at SLU Alnarp work on plant-insect interaction and on how the chemical communication works using insects as the model systems.
Christer Löfstedt's group at Lund University studies aspects of insect chemical communication with a focus on the evolutionary and applied aspects of pheromone communication in moths.
