IN INOCULANTS Nodulaid - 17th International Nitrogen Fixation ...

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Luis M. Rubio
Luis M. Rubio is Assistant Professor at the Center for Plant Genomics and Biotechnology of the Technical
University of Madrid (Spain). He obtained BS and PhD in Biology from the University of Seville. He
worked as posdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and as Associate Scientist at
the University of California-Berkeley. His main research interest is the biochemistry and biosynthesis of
nitrogenase, with a focus on the study of iron-molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis. His ongoing research
also includes improvement of biological hydrogen production by altered forms of nitrogenase.
Janet Sprent
Janet Sprent is Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology in the University of Dundee and Honorary Research
Fellow at the James Hutton Institute, Dundee. She has spent decades working on nitrogen cycling and
fixation, especially by legumes, working in all continents, including Antarctica. Current collaborations are in
Europe, Africa, India and Australia and focus on nodulation processes in understudied legumes. Her talk will
have a global coverage of the great variety of legumes, their nodule structure and nodulating bacteria and
will speculate on how legumes may have evolved over time to fill particular geographic niches
Jens Stougaard
Jens Stougaard´s primary research activity is on genes regulating development of nitrogen fixing root
nodules and mycorrhiza formation in legumes. Currently the mechanisms of Nod-factor perception,
the function of receptors involved and the downstream signal transduction cascades are in focus. The
plant model system used for this research is Lotus japonicus that is also used for investigating the long
range signalling integrating root nodule development into the general developmental program of the
plant. Genetics, genomics and biochemical methods are used to identify and characterise components of
regulatory circuits. In order to improve the genetic analysis and to establish a system for reverse genetics,
a large-scale insertion population based on the germ-line specific activity of the LORE1 retroelement is
being established and made available to the community.
Michael Udvardi
Michael Udvardi: I earned my PhD at The Australian National University where I worked on the biochemistry
of transporters of the symbiosome membrane that mediate traffic of nutrients between plant cells and
rhizobia in nitrogen-fixing legume nodules. During my postdoc years, I used molecular biology approaches
to isolate and characterize plant genes involved in nodule metabolism. Over the years, my research
interests have broadened, although work on symbiotic nitrogen fixation remains a core activity of my
lab. I am now a Professor at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation where we are developing and applying
tools for functional genomics in Medicago truncatula. Using forward and reverse-genetic approaches,
we are currently identifying new genes required for nodule development, differentiation, and symbiotic
nitrogen fixation.
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