Career path

Olivier graduated with a Master in Biology degree in 2012 at Ghent University. Later, in 2024 he obtained his PhD at the faculty of Bioscience Engineering at his Alma Mater investigating the genetic diversity and molecular gut content of Halyomorpha halys, an invasive stink bug in fruit agriculture. His acquired skills in bioinformatics and data science led him to a postdoctoral fellowship in Computational Biology at VIB, Steven Maere Lab on the GC SOY 2.0 project.

In 2017, Laure obtained her bachelor degree in Biology, with a specialization in Biology of Organisms and Ecosystems, at the University of Bordeaux (France). Then, she obtained her master degree in Biology Agrosciences in 2019, still at the University of Bordeaux, with a specialization in Mycology and Phytopathology. After almost two years working in R&D department of companies selling microbial biostimulants for plants, she joined the Root development group of Professor Tom Beeckman in 2022 as a PhD student, working on the identification and characterization of nitrification inhibitors in collaboration with an industrial partner.

In 2008, Jolien obtained her bachelor's degree in Biomedical Laboratory Technology at Hogent. Shortly after, she became a member of Prof. Gerrit Beemster's research group at PSB, focusing on organ growth regulation. When Gerrit Beemster moved on from PSB, the group became part of the Yield lab led by Prof. Dr. Dirk Inzé and Dr. Hilde Nelissen. In 2021, Jolien seized the opportunity to join Prof. Bert De Rybel's plant single cell platform. Here, the team is dedicated to expanding their knowledge and expertise in the exciting but challenging field of single-cell and spatial transcriptomics in plants.

My name is Els Van Lerberge I’ve studied, Biochemistry, a specialization year Drugstore and Cosmetics, a specialization year of Quality Control. My career at VIB started in 1996, so I was one of the first technicians working at VIB. Under the supervision of Director Professor Marc Van Montagu I’ve worked on different projects as technical support for Post Docs. After a while I could start working for group leader Professor Ann De Picker as a technician. In 2016 I‘ve got he opportunity to go to the University of Milan for a short stay. In Professor the Pickers group they developed anti-F18-ETEC in seeds of Arabidopsis, as prophylaxis to prevent F18-ETEC infection that causes diarrhea and anemia disease in piglets post weaning. Un this subject we could work together with lab of Luciana Rossi who where experts in veterinarian F18 challenge in piglet models, with the intention to investigate the clinical efficacy of our plant produced antibodies. For me this was very nice experience at professional and personal point of view. When professor Ann De Picker retired I’ve got the opportunity to start with the group of Laurens Pauwels. This was a nice chance to get acquainted with the transformation of maize, and start the setup of wheat and soy transformation. I enjoy working with all different kind of crops and make the transformation of these crops working and improve them, the research part is quit challenging that’s what makes it interesting for me.

PREDOCTORAL FELLOW

Tingyu Zhu studied on cell biology at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China. Her research focused on the role of GCCK/RP motif and conserved cysteine residues in distribution and function of Tetraspanin proteins in Arabidopsis. After her master‘s degree, she started her PhD in Advanced Live Cell Imaging group of Prof. Daniel Van Damme since September 2022. She is working on unraveling the role of temperature-dependent AtEH/Pan1 phosphorylation.