Register expression of interest
UNA Europa Early Career Researcher Workshop Registration deadline: 31 May 2021 Fees: free of charge
Environmental Plant Cell Signalling
Plants are continuously exposed to rapid changes in their environment, such as daily or seasonal changes in weather, fluctuations in light, water or nutrient levels, and the chance to encounter pathogenic or herbivorous attackers. As immobile sessile organisms, plants have no choice but to evolve to cope with these challenges. Current plant biotechnology efforts predominantly focus on genetic or genomic improvements of plants. The premise of this is to alter or supply genes or gene networks that allow the plant to become more tolerant of environmental insults. While the genome is the genetic blueprint of a cell, proteomes are the executioners of tasks that ensure cell survival. Understanding how integrated changes in the plant cell proteome and genome generate phenotypical traits is still poorly understood.
This virtual UNA Europa ECR Workshop is brought to you by a trans-national partnership between the Universities of Edinburgh, Helsinki and Bologna. The virtual workshop provides participants with an opportunity to work closely with research leaders to develop a deep understanding and formulate new concepts and ideas on how plants develop and cope with the ever-changing environment. Under the guidance of a research leader, participants from across the participating universities will form trans-national teams to design research proposal outlines in one of the following areas:
- Adaptation
- Light & Circadian Signalling
- Metabolism and Signalling
- Plant Development
- Plant Health
Teams will pitch their research proposal outlines to the UNA Europa Board for a chance to win prize money, allowing them to develop their idea further.
Virtual Workshop Programme
Mon 30 Aug, 12:00 – 16:00 (GMT +1)
- Introduction to workshop
- Keynote speaker: Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid
- Research Leader talks
Tue 31 Aug, 12:30 – 16:30 (GMT+1)
- Team discussions under guidance of research leaders
- Preparation of research proposal outlines
Wed 01 Sep, 12:00 – 16:30 (GMT+1)
- Teams pitch research proposal outlines
- Board vote and prize awarding
- Keynote speaker: Filip Rolland
- Workshop social
Register expression of interest
UNA Europa Early Career Researcher Workshop
Registration deadline: 31 May 2021
Fees: free of charge
Gregor Mendel Institute
Prof. Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid received her PhD from the University of Hamburg before completing postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck-Institute of Cell Biology in Ladenburg, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and the Friedrich Miescher-Institute in Basel. In 2004 she became a senior group leader at the Gregor Mendel Institute where she was also Scientific Director from 2007-2009. Her research has uncovered mechanisms of epigenetic regulation and inheritance in plants, dynamics and stability of genome and chromatin organization, and interplay between genetics and epigenetics. She has served on numerous scientific boards and funding councils, and her contributions were recognised by the 2016 Erwin Schrödinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
KU Leuven
Prof. Filip Rolland received his PhD from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium), working on glucose sensing and signaling in yeast, and then got his post-doctoral training in Jen Sheen’s lab in Boston (Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, US), investigating Arabidopsis hexokinase-mediated glucose signaling and SnRK1 protein kinase-mediated metabolic stress signaling. He then returned to the KU Leuven Biology department and in 2008 started his own research group to further explore the function and regulation of the SnRK1 metabolic sensor. Filip is actively involved in teaching, training and outreach. He also is an adjunct professor at Postech (Pohang, South-Korea) and since March 2021 is the first director of the new interdisciplinary KU Leuven Plant Institute (LPI).
What is UNA Europa?
For questions contact your local UNA Europa ECR Workshop Board member:
