The genetic improvement of plants will yield better and novel traits, such as increased biomass production and resilience in suboptimal environmental conditions. The emerging field of systems biology offers a framework to fully understand complex processes such as plant growth. Ultimately, systems biology will enable us to predict how components of the molecular machinery can be combined to obtain a desired product, allowing to design exactly the ideal properties for each crop plant.
The ambition of the Department of Plant Systems Biology is to spearhead the further development of systems biology approaches in the field of plant sciences with the mission to create improved crops for sustainable development. One of our goals is therefore to convert fundamental knowledge into industrial developments.
The preferred route is to establish win-win collaborations with highly competent industrial partners.

Collaborative Research
In collaborative research activities, we can offer our world class expertise in different fields of plant biotechnology, and a critical mass of competent scientists. We can also bring in our advanced technology platforms and direct access to service facilities within VIB. These include different profiling techniques, plant transformation, discovery of protein-protein interactions, the compound screening facility, and many more.
We seek for the best solutions to generate added value and competitive advantage for the companies we collaborate with.

Licensing opportunities
We have several patents and patent applications for which we continuously look for partners for licensing.

Links
VIB Technology transfer
Epipagri