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Stress doctor for plants
Michael Metzlaff was born in 1954 and the timing was next to perfect. This means that he is a part of the generation of molecular biologists who have experienced almost all of their field’s ground-breaking discoveries first-hand.
At a young age, Metzlaff discovered his fascination for the world of genes. He went on to study biology in Halle, the only university in what was then the German Democratic Republic that offered courses on genetics. When he was studying in the late 1970s, nothing was known about polymerase chain reactions. Genomes had not yet been elucidated and genetic engineering had not yet been developed. “I spent weeks in the university laboratory just isolating DNA,” remembers Dr. Michael Metzlaff. “Nowadays, you can elucidate an entire genome, or the entire hereditary information of an organism, in the same time,” he laughs.
When it come to researching RNA interference, Metzlaff, who has since obtained his postdoctoral teaching qualification, was right on the front line: in the 1990s, as part of a Europe-wide network, he was based in Norwich in the United Kingdom where he conducted research to elucidate this mechanism which is now being used for targeted down-regulation of the activity of specific genes.
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| Experts use PAM fluorometers to determine how severely plant photosynthesis is reduced by stress. |
RNA interference also plays a major role in his current work. At the Bayer BioScience Innovation Center in Ghent, Belgium, Metzlaff and his colleagues are working on making crops more resistant to stress factors such as heat, drought, cold, flooding, and salinated soil. Plants have their own natural defense mechanisms, but these consume a lot of energy - energy that is also needed for growth. This leads to smaller harvests. Given the prospect of climate change, stress in the form of heat and drought is likely to increase in some regions, thus endangering important yields. This is why plant stress tolerance is an extremely important research field for Bayer CropScience.
Metzlaff and his colleagues have discovered that plants react to stress is a very harsh manner. Their objective is to lessen the plant’s defense reaction so that more energy can now be devoted to growth.
“The real trick lies in throttling back the activity of the genes for the proteins involved in stress management to the right degree,” says Metzlaff.This can be done with optimal application of RNA interference. Field trials with modified varieties of rapeseed are currently under way. These plants did indeed produce significantly higher yields than the control crops under conditions of severe drought.
Metzlaff was head of the Crop Productivity research group and his primary task was internal research. He was then appointed Research Liaison Manager in May 2008, and now works on extending the research network with external partners. The first cooperation partners have already been found – one right next door at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and another in distant Canberra, Australia. Numerous research centers in other countries have also been recruited.
However, the objectives of the company’s own research have not changed. Making cotton, rapeseed and rice more stress-tolerant remains the goal. Today, the focus is on finding out more about the influence that the above-mentioned regulation of stress genes has on the activity of other genes. The scientists also want to discover other factors that may play a crucial role in whether and how intensively a gene is read and activated. The branch of research devoted to this phenomenon is called epigenetics.
“We used to think that everything depends on the genes,” says Metzlaff. “Now we know that there’s something that controls the genes in turn.” Epigenetics is now one of the hottest topics in molecular biology. Its findings could also provide new energy for plant breeding. Once again, Michael Metzlaff finds himself at the beginning of critical developments in his field and is right in the middle of it. “I am very grateful for that,” he says.
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