Jeff Schell Award for Plant Scientists from Golm
Dr. Clara Sanchez-Rodriguez and Sabrina Kleessen were rewarded with 2.500 € each for their outstanding research achievements
Following her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Madrid Dr. Clara Sanchez-Rodriguez came to Potsdam in 2008. Here she is working in Dr. Staffan Persson’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology with a research focus on plant cell walls.
Cell walls have diverse functions in plants: they contribute to cell growth, stabilize the plant and protect it against pathogens and, overall, they serve as a mediator between a cell and its environment. Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez‘s research at the MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology focuses on the last two aspects of cell wall functions. As is known, nutrients and signal molecules are not the only candidates that try to enter a cell, besides there are pathogens like viruses that attack plants. Therefore plants need a mechanism that regulates which candidates are allowed to enter the cell and which are not. “This task is taken over by certain proteins or rather protein complexes. Only candidates that are recognized by those proteins will be taken up into the cell by endocytosis”, Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez explains the mechanism. In collaboration with other scientists, she could identify the so-called TPLATE-complex that consists of eight proteins. These are barely similar to proteins that are already known from animal cells or yeast.
The paper “The TPLATE adaptor complex drives clathrin-mediated endocytosis in plants” – published in “Cell” on February 14th this year – attracted a lot of attention among scientists.
The second laureate, Sabrina Kleessen, finished her master studies in bioinformatics at the University of Potsdam at the end of 2010. Following this, she started her Ph.D. in Dr. Zoran Nikoloski’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. During her Ph.D., she developed procedures to analyze big amounts of data with mathematical and statistical methods. “For that purpose I compared the metabolite compositions of numerous ecotypes of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana coming from different origins (Eurasia, North America, Africa) “, Sabrina Kleessen comments on her work. These studies had the objective to find relatedness between ecotypes of similar or entirely different geographic origin. So far, the genetic information of plants was used for this kind of analyses. In general, Sabrina Kleessen’s work pursues the approach of using metabolite profiles to make predictions about traits and relations of plants.
Two publications, which arose from Ms. Kleessen’s Ph.D. thesis, were particularly accentuated during the award ceremony. On the one hand there was a publication in “Nature Communications” from this year: “Metabolic efficiency underpins performance trade-offs in growth of Arabidopsis”, and on the other hand a “Plant Cell” publication from 2013: “Data integration through proximity-based networks provides biological principles of organization across scales”. Her Ph.D. supervisor Dr. Zoran Nikoloski explains Sabrina Kleessen’s nomination with her scientific expertise and her publications, but he specially emphasizes: „Her ability to think critically, her concentration that she also dedicates to details as well as her open-mindedness that helped her to build up collaborations with partners from abroad.
The awards for both scientists were possible because of a generous donation of BASF.
Jeff Schell revolutionized plant sciences
The award is named after the Belgian molecular biologist Jozef Stefaan (Jeff) Schell (1935 – 2003). He studied zoology and microbiology at the University of Ghent, where he also worked as a professor from 1967 to 1995. From 1978 to 2000 he was director and head of the department “Molecular Basis of Plant Breeding” at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne.
Schell was one of the pioneers in biotechnology. He was interested in the interplay between plants and soil bacteria. His research on the development of plant tumors showed that Agrobacterium tumefaciens – a widespread soil bacterium – is able to transfer its genes to plant cells. As a consequence of those results it became possible to introduce new genes into plants mediated by bacteria.
The method for plant transformation led to a revolution in the field of plant sciences. It is used by scientists all over the world and helps them to discover gene functions and to gain a better understanding of plant metabolism, growth and development.
[KD/URS]