Speaker: Prof. Caroline Gutjahr

Hosted by Prof. Brande Wulff and prof. Ikram Blilou

Join us in Building 2, Level 5, Room 5209 at 10 am

Abstract:

Most land plants interact with fungi of the clade Glomermycotina to form a symbiosis called arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM). The fungi provide mineral nutrients to plants and receive up to 20% of photosynthetically fixed carbon in return. For symbiosis establishment, AM fungi colonize the root interior and the inside of plant cells. Symbiotic infection of single, already differentiated cells requires a poorly understood cellular remodeling program that is intertwined with mechanisms that control plant development and physiology. I will present how we work towards understanding molecular mechanisms underlying development and function of this fascinating symbiosis.

About the speaker:

Caroline Gutjahr is a director of the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm, Germany, where she heads the Department of Root Biology and Symbiosis. Previously she was Professor of Plant Genetics at the Technical University of Munich and before that an independent Emmy Noether group leader at the LMU Munich. She gained her PhD at the University of Lausanne in the laboratory of Uta Paszkowski and studied Biology at the University of Freiburg. Her research group aims at understanding the development and function of arbuscular mycorrhiza, a symbiosis between land plants and beneficial fungi.