GRK 2466: Network, exchange, and training program to understand plant resource allocation (NEXTplant)

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The sessile lifestyle of plants requires extraordinary plasticity. A given plant genotype allows for a broad range of phenotypes that are determined by complex interactions between environment and genotype. It is currently not possible to ab initio predict a plant’s phenotype from its genotype for a given environment. Resolving the genotype-phenotype relationship represents an important fundamental problem in biology and the development of models that predict phenotypes for given environments from genotypes denotes an important challenge, both for fundamental as well as for applied science. The International Research Training Group NEXTplant will focus on developing models that predict resource allocation to structure and growth, defense and stress response, nutrient acquisition, and reproduction in photosynthetic organisms.The resource allocation phenotype will be addressed from multiple angles and environmental contexts, in a small set of genetically tractable and well-characterized organisms that generate their carbon resources by photosynthesis. The experimental design of NEXTplant projects follows a simulate/learn-design-build-test-cycle that depends on close interactions between experimental and computational biologists. Hence projects are led by teams of theoretical and experimental biologists. This research program provides a timely training environment for doctoral researchers (and also for the faculty) at the interphase between theoretical and experimental biology and in the field of data-driven knowledge generationNEXTplant training is organized as a four-year program with a bipartite curriculum: The first year emphasizes training of the cohort in theoretical biology, statistics and computational biology, model building, and synthetic biology. The ensuing three-year dissertation research integrates the theoretical foundations laid in the first year with independent research and international experience.NEXTplant builds on a decade of interactions between MSU and HHU in undergraduate and graduate training. MSU groups will focus on how perception and transfer of environmental cues affects resource allocation and growth, whereas HHU will focus on resource acquisition and distribution, and maintenance processes. MSU contributes outstanding research infrastructure, such as non-invasive phenotyping of photosynthetic performance, whereas HHU provides biological imaging technologies, metabolic analysis, quantitative genetics, and theoretical biology.