News Archive 2015 - 2019

December 11, 2019

Congratulations to our doctoral student Claudio Cropano! His poster “Natural variation for pseudo-self-compatibility in perennial ryegrass” was awarded the second prize for the best poster during the external pagePlant Science Center Symposium 2019call_made held at ETH Zurich.

November 28, 2019

The MPB group is applying for funding for doctoral student positions (PhD) for 2020: the deadline to apply through Life Science Zurich Graduate School is rapidly approaching (December 1)! If you are a motivated student interested in our research projects on bioinformatics and genomics, apply at this external pagelinkcall_made.

November 20, 2019

The article "Genotype specific photosynthesis x environment interactions captured by automated fluorescence canopy scans over two fluctuating growing seasons" by Beat Keller, Shizue Matsubara, Uwe Rascher, Roland Pieruschka, Angelina Steier, Thorsten Kraska and Onno Muller has been published in external pageFrontiers in Plant Sciencecall_made. 

November 11, 2019

Today Gabriel Handschin successfully defended his master thesis “De novo assembly of Lolium multiflorum” before Prof. Wilhelm Gruissem and Prof. Bruno Studer. The exam confirmed the excellence of his work, his dedication, and his great potential as a future scientist and researcher. The Molecular Plant Breeding group wishes Gabriel all the best for his personal and professional future!

November 8, 2019

Congratulations to David Staehli and the apple team for winning the poster prize at the COST Action "1st PlantEd conference: Plant Genome Editing - State of the Art" in Serbia.

October 18, 2019

Another interesting piece of the puzzle towards understanding the self-incompatibly mechanism in Poaceae species. The Articel "Pattern of inheritance of a self‐fertility gene in an autotetraploid perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) population" by Javier Do Canto, Bruno Studer, Ursula Frei and Thomas Lübberstedt has been published in Plant Breeding external pageread morecall_made.

September 12, 2019

The article "Haplotypes at the Phg-2 Locus Are Determining Pathotype-Specificity of Angular Leaf Spot Resistance in Common Bean" by Michelle M. Nay, Clare M. Mukankusi, Bruno Studer and Bodo Raatz has been accepted and published in Frontiers in Plant Science, Plant Breeding external pageread morecall_made.

September 11, 2019

"Advanced breeding paves the way for disease-resistant beans" MPB group members are involved in the development and implementation of a method to efficiently breed for disease-resistant beans in different regions of the world. Their work will help to improve the livelihood and food security of smallholders in developing countries. Please find more information here.

September 1, 2019

Welcome back Marius Hodel! After successfully defending his Master thesis "Identification and characterization of LTR retrotransposons in Lolium multiflorum" in August, Marius will continue to work with the Molecular Plant Breeding group and contribute developing the phenotyping procedures for the Swiss apple core collection.

August 22, 2019

"Passion for breeding research": Dossier on grassland research in Switzerland highlighting the close collaboration between Agroscope and ETH Zurich. Please find further information external pageherecall_made.

August 17, 2019

Great presentation for apple growers and extension advisors by Dr. Giovanni Broggini at the Agroscope "external pageGüttinger-Tagungcall_made", depicting challenges and modern approaches for breeding superior disease resistant apple cultivars. A summary in German can be found Downloadhere (PDF, 491 KB)vertical_align_bottom.

August 1, 2019

A warm welcome to Dr. Graham Dow, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as "Oberassistent" (Senior Scientist). Dr. Dow’s research examines the relationship between stomatal development and leaf function to better understand how plants respond to climate. Most recently, he was a Research Assistant Professor at Boston University, where his group studied this topic in the lab (using Arabidopsis) and the field (using temperate and tropical tree species). At ETH Zurich, his physiology-focused research will utilize the broad genomic resources and technological tools of the Molecular Plant Breeding group.

August 1, 2019

Welcome back Michelle Nay! After successfully defending her doctoral thesis in May, Michelle will continue to work with the Molecular Plant Breeding group and lead the group’s research in buckwheat.

August 1, 2019

A warm welcome to Martina Binder, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as technical staff, after successfully completing her Master thesis in our group.

August 1, 2019

We congratulate Timothy Sykes who, after six years with us, is moving on to a new position as a ‘systems expert in genomics’ at the Functional Genomics Center in Zürich. His new position will see him working across several projects developing cutting edge DNA/RNA sequencing techniques starting part-time in August and full-time in November.

July 10, 2019

Damian Käch successfully completed his Bachelor thesis "Using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to asses genetic diversity of five forage plants" under direct supervision of Miguel Loera.

July 1, 2019

A warm welcome to Julian Klinkmann, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his Bachelor thesis "Generation of Cas9/base editors and GFP lines of Lolium doubled haploids by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation" under the supervision of Dr. Giovanni Broggini.

June 27, 2019

Congratulations to our doctoral student Claudio Cropano! His research poster “Mapping self-compatibility for hybrid breeding in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)” was awarded the third prize for best poster during the EGF-EUCARPIA Joint Symposium 2019 held at ETH Zurich.

April 23, 2019

A warm welcome to Julie Lintz! She is a Master student of Cell Biology, Physiology and Plant Pathology at the University Paris Diderot 7 and will work for the next four months on the project "Water Use Efficiency and Stomatal Density on Wheat" under the supervision of Dr. Steven Yates.

April 11, 2019

A warm welcome to Gabriel Handschin, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his Master thesis. Gabriel is a Master student of Systems Biology at ETH Zurich. He started his studies with a focus on molecular and chemical biology but became more interested in bioinformatics and computational biology. In his project, he will work on a de novo genome assembly of Lolium multiflorum using Oxford Nanopore sequencing data under the supervision of Dr. Dario Copetti.

April 1, 2019

A warm welcome to Moritz Köhle, who is joining the Molecular Plant
Breeding group for his Master thesis "Establishment and characterization of self-fertile genotypes of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) for hybrid breeding" under the supervision of Claudio Cropano.

April 1, 2019

A warm welcome to David Vetterli, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his Bachelor thesis "Delivery of Cas9 and Reporter Proteins to single Cells and Intact Plant Systems " under the supervision of Dr. Giovanni Broggini.

March 13, 2019

Dr. Dario Copetti will be attending the Gatersleben Research Conference on "Applied Bioinformatics in Crops” in Gatersleben, Germany. On Monday, March 18, he will present his work on the development of Downloada diploid genome assembly of Italian ryegrass (PDF, 13 KB)vertical_align_bottom.

March 5, 2019

A warm welcome to Joanna Majka, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a guest for 6-months scholarship. Joanna is a PhD student from IPG PAS in Poland who is interested in cytogenetic research of Festuca-Lolium complex. Her project concerns the identification of genome regions with low content of repetitive DNA to design a new set of cytogenetic probes for F. pratensis chromosomes. 

February 18, 2019

A warm welcome to Damian Käch, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his Bachelor thesis "Comparing methods to assess genetic diversity of forage plants" at ETH Zurich.  

January 28, 2019

A warm welcome to Marius Hodel, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his Master thesis "Identification of full-length transposable elements in Lolium multiflorum and evolutionary analyses" at ETH Zürich.  

January 18, 2019

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Simon Bull and Dr. Giovanni
Broggini from the Molecular Plant Breeding group have been elected to the COST Action "external pageGenome editing in plants - a technology with transformative potentialcall_made". They join Dr Philipp Aerni and Professor Meredith Schuman to represent Switzerland in European-based discussions on plant genome editing.

January 17, 2019

Congratulation to Dr. Timothy Sykes! He has been awarded the Hans Vontobel Prize 2019 for his doctoral thesis in the field of molecular plant breeding. In his dissertation "Investigation into the cause of fertility restoration in cytoplasmic male sterile perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)" he investigated an important genetic mechanism using perennial ryegrass as an example.

January 7, 2019

A warm welcome to Martina Binder-Carrel, who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for her Master thesis at ETH Zürich. She will be working on trait selection for crop improvement in wheat.

December 20, 2018

Research paper "Precision phenotyping reveals novel loci for quantitative resistance to septoria tritici blotch in European winter wheat" is now available on external pageBioRxivcall_made. The paper reflects a joint effort between Plant Pathology, Crops Science and Molecular Plant Breeding at ETH Zürich to reduce fungicide use in wheat.

December 11, 2018

We are very proud to present a pre-print version of our work "Genetic determination of stomatal patterning in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)" on external pagebioRxivcall_made.

December 9, 2018

Congratulations to Verena Knorst for publishing the "First assembly of the gene-space of Lolium multiflorum and comparison to other Poaceae genomes" published in external pageGrassland Sciencecall_made.

November 30, 2018

Our paper on external page“Pooled DNA sequencing to identify SNPs associated with a major QTL for bacterial wilt resistance in Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.)”call_made by Verena Knorst is now available open access.

October 24, 2018

Dr Beat Keller published the first manuscript based on his PhD thesis with the title "external pageMaximum fluorescence and electron transport kinetics determined by light-induced fluorescence transients (LIFT) for photosynthesis phenotypingcall_made" done at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. It describes the light-induced fluorescence transient (LIFT) method suitable for high-throughput photosynthesis phenotyping in plants. 

October 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Florian Goettelmann who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. Florian will be based in Agroscope Reckenholz and will be working on identifying genes of resistance to Xanthomonas transluscens pv. graminis in Lolium multiflorum.

September 27, 2018

Television report external page"Superpflanzen: Gen-Revolution in der Landwirtschaft"call_made (only in German) shown in the program Einstein at SRF 1.

September 6, 2018

The article "Accelerated ex situ breeding of GBSS- and PTST1-edited cassava for modified starch" by Simon E. Bull, David Seung, Christelle Chanez, Devang Mehta, Joel-Elias Kuon, Elisabeth Truernit, Anton Hochmuth, Irene Zurkirchen, Samuel C. Zeeman, Wilhelm Gruissem and Hervé Vanderschuren has been accepted and published in Science Advances read more.

June 14, 2018

Michelle Nay's ETH Ambassadors Blog is online: Magic beans – breeding disease resistant beans for smallholder farmers.external pagecall_made

June 1, 2018

The article "Insights to plant‐microbe interactions provide opportunities to improve resistance breeding against root diseases in grain legumes" by Lukas Wille, Monika M. Messmer, Bruno Studer and Pierre Hohmann has been accepted and published in Plant, Celle & Environment external pageread morecall_made.

June 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Michaela Voleková who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. Michaela will be based in Agroscope Wädenswil and her project will focus on the development and validation of statistical models for genomic selection in apple.

June 1, 2018

The article "Genetic Loci Governing Androgenic Capacity in Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)" by Rachel Begheyn, Steven Yates,
Timothy Sykes and Bruno Studer has been accepted and published in the journal g3 external pageread morecall_made.

May 31, 2018

The article "Overexpressing the H‐protein of the glycine cleavage system increases biomass yield in glasshouse and field grown transgenic tobacco plants" by Patricia E. Lopez-Calcagno, Stuart Fisk, Kenny L. Brown, Simon E. Bull, Paul F. South and Crhistine A. Raines has been accepted and published in the journal Plant Biotechnology external pageread morecall_made.

April 25, 2018

The article "Genomic variation in 3,010 diverse accessions of Asian cultivated rice" by Wensheng Wang, Ramil Mauleon, Zhiqiang Hu, Dmytro Chebotarov, Shuaishuai Tai, Zhichao Wu, Min Li, Tianqing Zheng, Roven Rommel Fuentes, Fan Zhang, Locedie Mansueto, Dario Copetti, …, has been accepted and published in Nature external pageread morecall_made.

April 4, 2018

The book chapter "Ascorbic Acid Biofortification in Crops" by Gavin M. George, Michael E. Ruckle, Melanie R. Abt and Simon E. Bull was published in "Ascorbic Acid in Plant Growth, Development and Stress Tolerance" Downloadread more on page 375 (PDF, 11.8 MB)vertical_align_bottom.

March 14, 2018

The article "Generation of advanced fire blight-resistant apple (Malus × domestica) selections of the fifth generation within 7 years of applying the early flowering approach" by Ina Schlathölter, Melanie Jänsch, Henryk Flachowsky, Giovanni Broggini, Magda-Viola Hanke and Andrea Patocchi has been accepted and published in the journal Planta external pageread morecall_made.

March 1, 2018

A warm welcome to David Stähli who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. David will be based at Agroscope in Wädenswil. Within a SNF-funded project, he will focus on developing and optimizing genome editing technologies to obtain disease resistant apple cultivars. 

March 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Luc Gujer who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his bachelor thesis. Luc will work with Steven Yates on environmental factors affecting stomatal patterning in winter wheat across Switzerland.

March 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Reto Zihlmann who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his master thesis. Reto will work with Steven Yates to measure and model leaf growth of the GABI-wheat population under changing environmental conditions.

March 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Uriel Zemp who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for his master thesis. Uriel will work on drought stress in Lolium perenne.

February 7, 2018

The article "Genomes of 13 domesticated and wild rice relatives highlight genetic conservation, turnover and innovation across the genus Oryza" by Joshua C. Stein,Yeisoo Yu, Dario Copetti, ..., has recently been accepted and published in the journal Nature Genetics external pageread morecall_made.

February 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Beat Keller who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a post-doctoral researcher. Beat collaborates with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in order to improve climbing bean varieties. The project is funded by the world food system center of the ETH and aims to accelerate breeding by using genomic selection.

February 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Daniel Grogg  who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. Daniel Daniel will be based in Agroscope Wädenswil and his research will focus on the homozygous genome editing of Lolium perenne.

February 1, 2018

A warm welcome to Simon Bull who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a post-doctoral researcher. Simon will be working with Giovanni Broggini and based in Agroscope, Wädenswil. The SNSF-funded project will use genome editing techniques to introduce disease resistance in apple.

December 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Marius Rohner who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. He will be working on the functional characterisation of self-incompatibility genes in Lolium perenne."

December 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Claudio Cropano who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a PhD student. As part of the European Industrial Doctoral Program “PlantHUB”, Claudio will investigate self-fertility in perennial ryegrass and its use for hybrid breeding.

November 23, 2017

The program and posters of the external page2017 WFSC Research Symposiumcall_made are available online. Thanks to Mike and Lukas for contributing to the success of this event!

November 8, 2017

Der Schlüssel liegt in der Diversität: Die Arbeit der Pflanzenzüchter wird in der Öffentlichkeit kaum wahrgenommen, ihre neuen Methoden hingegen schon. Wie Landwirte von neuen Züchtungsmethoden profitieren und welche Eigenschaften die Pflanze der Zukunft hat, erklärt Prof. Dr. Bruno Studer in der Zeitschrift «external pageDie Grünecall_made». Bitte lesen Sie hier das ausführliche DownloadInterview (PDF, 698 KB)vertical_align_bottom.

November 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Dario Copetti who is joining the group as a senior postdoctoral researcher. He brings in experience in eukaryotic genome sequencing, assembly, annotation and their application to genome evolution analyses and plant breeding.

October 31, 2017

The review “Benefits of condensed tannins in forage legumes fed to ruminants: importance of structure, concentration and diet composition” with Roland Kölliker, Andreas Lüscher, Carsten Malisch and Katharina Kempf as co-authors has recently been accepted for publication in Crop Science. A first look is available external pageherecall_made.

October 11, 2017

At the kick-off meeting on October 10/11, the European H2020 project EUCLEG “Breeding forage and grain legumes to increase EU’s and China’s protein self-sufficiency” was officially launched in Paris. The project aims to broaden the genetic base of legume crops and analyse the genetic diversity of promising European and Chinese accessions, to analyse the genetic architecture of key breeding traits using genome-wide association studies and to evealuate the benefits brought by genomic selection. MPB, in close collaboration with Agroscope’s fodder crop breeding group, plays an integral part in this project, focussing on the phenotypic and molecular genetic analysis of key breeding targets in red clover.

July 19, 2017

The article "Inheritance patterns of the response to in vitro doubled haploid induction in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)"
by Rachel Begheyn, Niels Roulund, Kirsten Vangsgaard, David Kopecký and Bruno Studer has recently been accepted and published in the journal Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC). external pageRead morecall_made

June 15, 2017

A new short film about ETH Zurich has been released - have a look at it! It communicates the key facts about our university in just 120 seconds.

May 16, 2017

New Publication on "Plant production for animal nutrition" which covers the 25^th annual assembly of the Swiss Society of Agronomy and its 25 years of history (article in DownloadGerman (PDF, 221 KB)vertical_align_bottom and DownloadFrench (PDF, 193 KB)vertical_align_bottom).

May 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Maximilian Vogt who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as a phd student int the granted ITN project Plant HUB with the title "Exploiting reproductive traits for hybrid breeding in grasses".

April 25, 2017

A new publication from HERC project in Agronomy from the groups of WFSC members Prof. Bruno Studer, Molecular Plant Breeding, and Prof. Samuel Zeeman, Plant Biochemistry, adds to knowledge required for breeders to develop a high-energy clover variety for sustainable ruminant livestock production. Read more 

March 17, 2017

Novel aspects to an old debate: “It is never the technology that is good or bad but its application” external pageInterview of Prof. B. Studer with Radio SRFcall_made on Genome Editing.

March 15, 2017

A warm welcome to Giovanni Broggini who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as responsible for the "horticulture hub" in collaboration with Agroscope Wädenswil. He will conduct and lead research on fruit crops breeding, mainly focusing on disease resistance breeding and novel breeding techniques. 

March 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Ingrid Stoffel-Studer who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group as the new laboratory technician. She will be supporting many research projects by assisting in the lab.  

February 20, 2017

The article "Diurnal Leaf Starch Content: An Orphan Trait in Forage Legumes" by Michael E. Ruckle, Michael A. Meier, Lea Frey, Simona Eicke, Roland Kölliker, Samuel C. Zeeman and Bruno Studer has been published in the journal Agronomy. external pageRead morecall_made

February 1, 2017

A warm welcome to Martin Schuler who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for bioinformatcs support and GBS analysis.  

November 28, 2016

The article "Haploid and Doubled Haploid Techniques in Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) to Advance Research and Breeding" by Rachel Begheyn, Thomas Lübberstedt and Bruno Studer has been accepted for publication in "Agronomy" and is now online. Our review describes current and potential future merits of DH techniques for perennial ryegrass research and breeding. external pageRead morecall_made

November 21, 2016

The article "Drought Effects on Proanthocyanidins in Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia Scop.) Are Dependent on the Plant’s Ontogenetic Stage" by Carsten S. Malisch, Juha-Pekka Salminen, Roland Kölliker, Marica T. Engström, Daniel Suter, Bruno Studer und Andreas Lüscher has been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. external pageRead morecall_made

November 2, 2016

The article from Timothy Sykes about mediating the recent plenary session discussion panel “Innovation vs. Regulation” at the EUCARPIA General Congress. Published in IDP Bridges News. external pageRead morecall_made

October 19, 2016

A warm welcome to Marina Pellegrini who will be joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for the next year. She will be working on a PhD project entitled "Functional characterisation of self-incompatibility genes in Lolium perenne".

October 17, 2016

A warm welcome to Bettina Müller who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for the next months. She will be working on the development and optimiziation of DNA extraction, amplification and analysis procedures on automated lab equipment.  

October 1, 2016

Molecular Plant Breeding goes live! Please check our website and discover the world of our research field.

October 1, 2016

A warm welcome to Miguel Loera who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for the next four years. He will be working as a PhD student on the project "Genomic tools for analyzing genetic diversity in grassland”.

Also a warm welcome to Esther Ravelhofer-Alge who will be the assistant of the Molecular Plant Breeding group from now on.  

September 1, 2016

A warm welcome to Lukas Wille who is joining the Molecular Plant Breeding group for the next three years. He will be working as a PhD student on the project “Improving disease resistance of pea through selection at the plant-soil interface”.

August 25, 2016

Fact sheet on “New plant breeding techniques” being released by the SCNAT. external pageRead morecall_made

June 1, 2016

ETH Zürich, in partnership with Agroscope, has appointed Bruno Studer as Associate Professor of Molecular Plant Breeding. The new professorship will be shared between Agroscope and ETH Zurich with a view to strengthening plant breeding in Switzerland. More information about this newly created chair can be found external pageherecall_made.

June 1, 2016

How does research on self-incompatibility link to practical plant breeding. Read more about it in this article published in Horizonte (in German) Downloadhere (PNG, 1.6 MB)vertical_align_bottom.

May 1, 2016

A warm welcome to Daniel Grogg who is joining the Forage Crop Genetic group for the next six months. He will be working on his Master project entitled “Genetic transformation of double haploid perennial ryegrass”.

March 11, 2016

“In-silico identification of candidate genes for fertility restoration in cytoplasmic male sterile perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.)” by Sykes et al. has been accepted for publication in “Genome Biology and Evolution”. Congratulations to Tim, Steven, Bruno and all the co-authors for their great work on cytoplasmic male sterile in perennial ryegrass.
external pageRead morecall_made

March 1, 2016

A warm welcome to Verena Knorst who is joining the Forage Crop Genetic group as a gardener and to Lucia Bernasconi who is joining us for her bachelor thesis which will focus on the phenotyping of white clover for starch content.

February 17, 2016

“TILLING in forage grasses for gene discovery and breeding improvement” by Manzanares et al. has been accepted for publication in “New Biotechnology”. Congratulations to Chloé, Steven, Michael and Bruno for this publication describing the advantages and difficulties of TILLING in forage grasses as well as the development of TILLING as a forward and reverse genetic tool. external pageRead morecall_made

February 1, 2016

A warm welcome to Marius Hodel who is joining the Forage Crop Genetic group for the next months. He will be working on his Bachelor project entitled “Epidermal patterning in wheat”.

Also a warm welcome to Michelle Nay who is joining the Forage Crop Genetic group as a PhD student. Her PhD research project will be focusing on resolving the genetic basis of the common bean diseases Angular Leaf Spot (ALS) and ascochyta as well as targeting resistance genes by molecular markers to improve breeding efficiency. More information about her researche project can be found in the research section. Read more

January 27, 2016

external page“Leaf Length Tracker: a novel approach to analyse leaf elongation close to the thermal limit of growth in the field”call_made by Nagelmüller et al. has been published in the “Journal of Experimental Botany”. Congratulations to Sebastian, Steven and all the co-authors for their great work in phenotyping leaf growth.