Professor Ueli Grossniklaus
Principal Investigator
Professor Ueli Grossniklaus is the Group Leader and Director of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at The University of Zurich. He is a developmental geneticist interested in elucidating the genetic and molecular basis of plant reproduction. He is an internationally renowned expert on signaling during fertilisation and epigenetic aspects of seed development but has also worked on apomixis for over 25 years. In his research, he employs natural apomicts as well as the genetic models maize and Arabidopsis to develop tools for the engineering of apomixis, efforts that resulted in a proof-of-concept for producing clonal seeds in maize.
Dr Nina Chumak
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Nina Chumak is a molecular geneticist with an interest in plant development and crop improvement. She obtained her PhD from the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna, Austria, working on the epigenetic regulation of pollen development, before she joined the University of Zurich. She is a highly experienced maize geneticist and characterized the non-reduction in female4 mutant that was used to generate - in combination with genome elimination - the first clonal seeds in maize.
Dr Stephano Bencivenga
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Stephano Bencivenga is a molecular biologist who has worked on diverse aspects of plant development. He obtained his PhD from the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy, investigating the role of auxin and cytokinin during ovule development. After a postdoc at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, where he worked on stem cell development in Arabidopsis and on yield gain in wheat, he joined the University of Zurich on a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship.
Philippe Gadient
Technical Assistant
Philippe Gadient obtained his MSc degree from the University of Zurich, specializing in molecular and cellular biology. Being interested in plant development and land plant evolution, he chose to work on a conserved signal transduction pathway in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha for his MSc thesis and then joined the Hy-Gain team at the University of Zurich.
Hy-Gain for smallholders
High-yielding, sorghum and cowpea seed