Tom Beeckman leads the Root Development Group. The root system of Arabidopsis thaliana is an excellent model to study the relationship between cell-cycle regulation and growth and development. Understanding this offers a great potential for altering root architecture and water uptake, allowing to design plants to survive under dryer conditions. The research of this group focuses on the formation of lateral-root primordia in the pericycle to investigate how cell-cycle regulation is involved in the initiation of new organs. Plant roots serve a multitude of functions. They anchor and supply plants with water and nutrients and exchange various growth substances with the shoots. At the root-soil interface, numerous interactions between plants and their environment take place. The diversity of functions and broad range of interactions with the environment render the biology of roots complicated. During the last ten years, Arabidopsis thaliana has been proven to be an efficient model plant to study root development and time has come to extrapolate the obtained insights to crop species such as maize, a species that is currently also under investigation.