The Experimental Plant Systems Biology Lab at KU Leuven
Engineering plant chronobiology for climate adaptation
The lab was awarded a VLAIO-LA grant together with the lab of Bram Van de Poel and colleagues at different research stations in Flanders. Read more.
The prominent science magazine Nature covered Devang’s past opinion article writing in a feature article. Read it here
PhD student Aisha-Alexandra Gerhardt has been awarded a prestigious 4 year PhD fellowship from the Flanders Research Foundation (FWO). Congratulations Aisha!
PhD student Aisha-Alexandra Gerhardt won the Best Poster Award at the 5th National PhD Symposium on Molecular Plant Physiology held at the University of Ghent.
Devang authored a World view article in Nature commenting on the new EU proposal to regulate gene-edited crops. Read it here.
Devang was presented with the Carl Douglas Award at the 2023 Canadian Society of Plant Biology conference!
Devang was an invited guest at this global science policy conference to discuss forthcoming EU legislative proposals on gene editing and sustainable agriculture.
Devang is presenting the lab’s research agenda to the public at Pint of Science Leuven today
The lab currently has an open vacancy for a lab technician to support and manage our science.
We are looking for a talented student to start in the lab this winter!
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We study and engineer the plant circadian clock, a molecular oscillator that allows plants to tell the time and adapt to seasonal environmental changes.
The genetic architecture of the plant circadian clock (adapted from Mehta et al., 2021)
Accurately telling the time and predicting when the next day will begin is a matter of life and death for plants. As living beings that photosynthesise in the day and respire at night, most plants need to partition their most important metabolic functions temporally. In fact, an estimated 30% of gene expression in plants is controlled by their internal circadian clock.
Our lab aims to develop a sophisticated understanding of how the plant circadian clock controls all aspects of plant growth at the molecular level. We are also interested in how plants utilise the clock and other processes to help adapt to new geographic environments, something of paramount importance in a world experiencing accelerating climate change.