About the Centre

The differences in evolutionary history between plants, animals and fungi, as well as the fundamental differences in their growth and development strategies provide important reasons for studying developmental processes that are truly unique to plants. Developmental processes in plants are tightly integrated with responses to external conditions and stresses. At the level of regulatory mechanisms this is reflected in extensive cross-communication between endogenous developmental control systems, including the biosynthesis, transport and signal transduction pathways of growth hormones, and the signaling mechanisms that mediate responses to changes in environmental conditions and stress.

The research in the Centre is focused on three areas of plant developmental biology:

• Apical meristem function
• Vascular meristem function and wood formation
• Leaf growth and development

The two most important model systems that are used to develop an understanding of growth and development are Arabidopsis and Populus (aspens and poplars). While Arabidopsis is a model for many reasons, the choice of Populus as the second model is based on its establishment as the model system for investigating tree-related aspects of development.

Forests are the major natural resource in Sweden and the fibres extracted from the plant cell walls provide an excellent raw material for paper and textiles. Maintaining the competitiveness of the Swedish forest sector will inevitably require the adoption of state-of-the-art tree improvement and genetic engineering approaches. This Centre will facilitate not only cutting-edge science but also the practical use of biotechnology for the future development of novel, value-added products based on woody raw materials.

At Umeå Plant Science Centre, we have the best research environment in the world for experimental studies of tree biology and plant hormone physiology with excellent facilities for transgenic plant generation and growth, genomics, metabolomics, proteomics etc. Currently, we also host one of the world’s largest tree-related functional genomic programmes.