Metabolites projects Group members
Metabolites research
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Information about the current and former group members
Alain Goossens Principle investigator at VIB and Professor (5%) at Ghent University
Tel: +32 (0)9 331 3851
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS
Laurens Pauwels
Laurens Pauwels obtained his PhD in the Secondary Metabolites group in June 2009. His research focused on the regulation of gene expression by the jasmonate plant stress hormone in Arabidopsis thaliana and the molecular players involved. As a postdoc he has been working at University of California, Davis, CA, US, to study the regulation of JAZ protein stablity by a new E3 ubiquitin ligase. In September 2010 he has returned to the lab to continue studying the jasmonate signaling complex.
Nathan De Geyter
Tel: +32 (0)9 331 3905 Michele Fabris
Michiel Matthijs
e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tessa Moses Valerie De Sutter, PhD - Teacher - Gent, Belgium
Miguel Gonzalez Guzman, PhD - Postdoctoral researcher - Instituto de Biologia Molecular y Celular de Plantas, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia - Valencia, Spain
Lies Maes, PhD - Postdoctoral researcher - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Aix-Marseille-II, CEA Cadarache, St. Paul-les-Durance Cedex, France
Sofie Tilleman, PhD - Expert - Federaal Agentschap voor de Veiligheid van de Voedselketen (FAVV), Brussel, Belgium
Jan Geerinck, PhD - Postdoctoral researcher - VIB/Ghent University - Belgium Chloë Van Oostende, PhD - Postdoctoral researcher - University of Nebraska-Lincoln - United States Miriam Onrubia Ibañez - Predoctoral researcher - Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona, Spain Freya Lammertyn - Research associate - Bayer Crop Science - Gent, Belgium Lander Ingelbrecht - Research associate - Genencor - Brugge, Belgium
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Alain Goossens (born 1971) has studied Biology-Plant Biotechnology at Ghent University and obtained his PhD in Marc Van Montagu’s lab at the Laboratory of Genetics, Ghent University (1998), studying plant seed storage protein synthesis. Subsequently, he performed postdoctoral studies at the IBMCP in Valencia (Spain) in the lab of Ramón Serrano, working on yeast salt tolerance. He returned to VIB-Ghent University and started his own research group within the VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology at Ghent University in 2003, focusing on jasmonate signaling, gene discovery in plant secondary metabolism and metabolic engineering. He is teaching ‘Metabolic Engineering’ at Ghent University.
Amparo graduated as an Agricultural Engineer at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain, in 2008, after doing her Master Thesis in the PSB Functional Genomics Group. In 2009 she started her PhD research, in which she will study jasmonate signalling cascades in Arabidopsis. The knowledge gained will also be translated to the medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus, in particular with the aim to engineer the terpenoid indole alkaloid pathway in that species.
Nathan De Geyter graduated magna cum laude in Biology at the University of Ghent in 2009, after finishing his Master Thesis on nodulation in the PSB lab of Plant-Microbe Interactions. In 2010, he started his PhD research at the PSB department after he obtained a scholarship from the IWT. His work focuses on the Tandem Affinity Purification (TAP) technology in the model legume Medicago truncatula. Thus, integrating both labs of P-M Interactions and Secondary Metabolites, who work on this remarkable model plant. Using the TAP technique one can identify all unknown protein interactors from a known ‘bait’ protein. The baits that will be further investigated are involved in MeJA-dependent regulation of secondary metabolism.
Michele Fabris obtained his BsC Biology in 2005 at the University of Bologna (Italy) and his MsC in Molecular Biology at the same university in 2008. His master thesis focused on jasmonate responses and poylamine accumulation in tobacco plants. After his graduation he still worked on auxin signalling and secondary metabolism at the University of Bologna. In February 2009 he started his PhD at PSB dealing with the modelling and engineering of lipid metabolism of the pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.
Michiel Matthijs obtained a master in biotechnology/biochemistry at the university of Ghent in 2009. The subject of his thesis was a comparison of the /Arabidopsis /and human cell cycle. After graduation he started his Phd, funded by the IWT, on the accumulation of lipids in the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. The main focus of his work is finding genes that increase lipid productivity and subsequently modifying them through genetic techniques. An increased understanding of the lipid metabolism should benefit the diatom research community and in the long term may translate into applications.
Tessa Moses, a graduate in Microbiology from the University of Mumbai, India, obtained a predoctoral position in the VIB International PhD program of 2007, to work on the biosynthesis of novel plant derived drugs in engineered plants and yeasts. In her project she will combine cutting-edge functional genomics techniques from the VIB departments PSB at UGent and Molecular and Developmental Genetics at KULeuven, for large-scale analysis of genes involved in plant metabolism. Thereby she plans to create a combinatorial biosynthesis platform, allowing the production of novel biologically active plant derived molecules, in particular triterpene saponins.
In 2003, Jacob Pollier obtained an engineering degree in biochemistry at the Hogeschool Gent. After finishing a masters course in Biotechnology at Ghent University, he started a PhD in 2005. The aim of his research is to obtain proof of concept for combinatorial biochemistry in plants, focusing on the secondary metabolite class of the triterpene saponins. Thereby he employs large-scale gene discovery programs in six different (medicinal) plant species.
Sandra Soetaert graduated in Biology at Ghent University in 2007. Afterwards she obtained a master in Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2008 she started her PhD, studying the biosynthesis of the anti-malarial compound artemisinin in Artemisia annua at the lab of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Ghent University, in collaboration with the PSB department. She aims to identify novel genes involved in the biosynthesis of artemisinin or in the formation of the glandular trichomes, the producer organs, that eventually will be of use to engineer increased production of artemisinin in plants or other organisms.