Joost van Dongen studied Plant Physiology and Plant Biochemistry at Utrecht University and at Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands. He received his PhD at the Utrecht University in 2001 and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany, from 2002 to 2006. Since 2006, he has served as an independent research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam. His research group studies plant molecular and biochemical responses to changes in oxygen availability and the impact of beneficial root bacteria on plant primary metabolism and growth.
Francesco Licausi studied Biotechnology at the University of Parma and Plant and Microbial Biotechnology at the University of Pisa in Italy. In 2010, he completed his Ph.D. at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy) and Potsdam University (Germany), defending a thesis on the characterization of members of the Ethylene Responsive Transcription Factor Family in response to low oxygen in plants. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam (Germany) until April 2011 before moving back to Italy to serve as Assistant Professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. The research topics studied in Francesco’s group deal with the regulation of the molecular response to reduced oxygen availability in plants and the regulation of biosynthetic pathways involved in secondary metabolite production.
