Our experts

Kris Audenaert

• Plant defense molecules and plant pathogenic fungi
• Green leave volatiles
• Monitoring of pathogenic fungi
• Phenotyping robot for plant phenotype analysis

Pascal Boeckx

• N and water use efficiency of plants
• Tropical soil fertility
• Biochar
• Leguminosae and rhizobium
• Stable (N, O) isotope applications

Patrick De Clercq

• Biocontrol of arthropod pests
• Biocontrol of greenhouse pests
• Environmental risks of biocontrol
• Development of rearing techniques and quality control of beneficial mites and insects
• Compatibility of pesticides and GM crops with biocontrol

Leen De Gelder

• Phosphor solubilizing bacteria
• Selecting functional microbial strains
• Quorum sensing signaling compounds
• Bioreactors and fermentation

Emmy D'Hooghe

• High-tech horticulture under controlled environments
• Vertical farming and plant processes under controlled conditions
• Light/LEd strategies influencing plant morphology and quality traits
• Soilless production systems and steering secundary metabolites via environment

Kristof Demeestere

• Chemical trace analysis of bioactive small organic molecules
• Biofiltration and advanced oxidation processes

Stefaan De Neve

• Soil enzyme activities
• Phosphor and nitrogen dynamics in the plant and soil
• Phosphor solubilizing bacteria
• Microbial biomass in the soil
• Biochar

Caroline De Tender

• Soil and rhizosphere microbiomes
• Next generation sequencing to profile microbial soil communities
• Biochar and its role in plant-microbe systems
• Microplastics in soil and rhizosphere context

Sarah De Saeger

• Identification of new (myco)toxins
• (Myco)toxins: prevalence and in situ detection in the field

Kristof De Schutter

• Molecular entomology focused on insect biology
• Fundamental and applied RNAi in insects
• Smart bio-insecticide delivery
• Glycobiology in insect control

Bart Devreese

• Protein analytics wit strong focus on quantitative proteomics
• Post-translational modification analysis of proteins
• Mass spectrometry workflow
• Protein expression and engineering (e.g. microbial hosts)

Danny Geelen

• Plant hormones and their relation to (root) growth
• Chemical analogues of plant hormones
• Molecular Breeding
• Urban farming  - hydroponics

Xavier Ghellynck

• B2B agri-food marketing
• Optimization of the agri value chains and networks
• Sensoric quality of food
• Circular economy: sustainable approaches of wastes
• Lean management

Monica Höfte

• Biocontrol agents
• Secondary metabolites in Pseudomonas bacteria
• Plant immunity and Induced resistance
• Plant pathogen interactions
• Rice pathogens

Tina Kyndt

• Epigenetics and plant defense mechanisms against nematodes
• Screening of bionematicidal molecules
• Plant-nematode interaction

Steven Maenhout

• Plant breeding strategy and decision making
• Qunatitative genetics (linking genotype with phenotype)
• Genome-wide prediction - genomic selection approaches
• Phenotypic data analysis for breeding and evaluation
• Use of computational modellin-machine learning in breeding oriented problems

Wouter Maes

• Drone-UAV remote sensing for natural and agricultural systems
• Hyperspectral and thermal sensing for vegetation monitoring
• Suninduced fluorescence and other advanced sensors for plant- vegetation status
• Integration of UAV monitoring into precision agriculture and pleant health applications

Sven Mangelinckx

• Synthesis of N-heterocyclic compounds
• Non proteinogenic amino acids
• Plant extracts and their chemical analogues
• Algae pheromones
• Quorum sensing signaling compounds

José Martins

• Cyclic lipopeptides produced by Pseudomonas bacteria
• Solid state peptide synthesis
• Extraction of natural compounds from complex matrices
• Elucidation of the covalent structure of molecules via NMR
• Determination and modelling of the 3 D structure and dynamics of molecules

Abdul Mouazen

• proximal soil sensing technologies for real time soil property analysis
• Machine-learning-based soil and crop health and yield prediction
• Multi-sensor data fusion technologies for precision agriculture

Joachim Moens (HoGent)

• Biocontrol of insects
• Flower strips hosting natural enemies
• Integrated pest management

Laurens Pauwels

• Plant biotechnology with emphasis on crop genome engineering
• Improving CRISPR delivery and plant regeneration
• Mechanisms of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation
• Translating genome-editing tech into practical crop improvement pipelines

Pieter Spanoghe

• Formulation of biopesticides
• Risk assessment of (bio)pesticides
• Fate of biopesticides in crops and environment

Kathy Steppe

• Plant responses to abiotic and biotic stress
• Innovative plant sensors
• Plant ecophysiology
• Plant modelling
• Climate change

Els Van Damme

• Defense related proteins
• Carbohydrate binding proteins (lectins)
• Interaction of proteins in the plant
• Abiotic stress assays

Peter Van Damme

• Burkholderia bacteria
• Bacteria culture collection
• Genotypic characterization of bacteria
• Colony picker: high throughput isolation of rhizosphere bacteria

Dominique Van Der Straeten

• Plant reactions to nutrient deficiency
• Nutritional biofortification of crops
• Plant hormones (ethylene and jasmonate) in relation to mechanical stress
• Light and hormones: crosstalk
• Analysis of plant volatiles

Elias Van de Vijder (HoGent)

• Development of IMP tools for cereal pestst
• Spatial distribution analysis of pest populations within agricultureal fields
• Phenology modelling of pest populations within agirucltural fields
• Field based studies on pest damage, tresholds and control strategies

Thomas Van Leeuwen

• Mode of action of (bio)insecticides
• Toxicity screening of (bio)insecticides
• Biocontrol of mites
• Elucidation of resistance mechanisms in insects

Wim Verbeke

• B2C marketing
• Consumer behavior

Inge Verstraeten

• Root development and root system adaptation
• Plant hormones and signalling controlling root architecture
• Plant responses to nutrient conditions in the rhizosphere (including phosphate)

Stefaan Werbrouck

• Chemical analogues of plant hormones
• In vitro micropropagation
• Somatic embryogenesis
• Temporary immersion bioreactors

Anne Willems

• Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria (PGPR)
• Rhizobium
• Functional biodiversity of bacteria
• Plant pathogenic bacteria