Bert De Rybel graduated from the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering of Ghent University in 2005 before starting his PhD research in the group of prof. Tom Beeckman, focusing on early lateral root development. For his postdoctoral research, he moved to the lab of prof. Dolf Weijers at Wageningen University in early 2010 funded by Marie-Curie and FEBS postdoc grants. Here, he initiated work on early vascular development. He received a prestigious NWO VIDI grant to continue this line of research in an independent manner. Funded by an FWO Odysseus II and an ERC Starting Grant, Bert is currently heading the ‘Vascular Development’ lab within VIB; is associate professor at Ghent University and was elected EMBO young investigator in 2019. His group aims at integrating developmental, cell and evolutionary biology to understand how plant vascular tissues develop.

Akshay earned his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore, India. Subsequently, he pursued his master's degree in Genetics and Molecular Plant Sciences in Sweden through a collaborative program involving Uppsala University, Stockholm University, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Further, he joined the group of Prof Annelie Carlsbecker to conduct his master's thesis, studying the impact of abiotic stress on the root primary xylem development. Continuing in the same line of research, Akshay joined as a PhD student in the group of Prof Bert De Rybel in March 2022. Currently, Akshay's project aims to identify the novel transcriptional regulators controlling primary xylem development.

The tissue specific responses of roots to cytokinin

Max used single-cell RNA-sequencing to examine the tissue-specific responses of the Arabidopsis thaliana root to cytokinin application. He aimed to leverage the single-cell data to identify and characterize novel tissue-specific enactors of cytokinin function in the root vascular tissues, and identify tissue-specific DNA binding motifs associated with up- or downregulation of gene expression downstream of cytokinin signalling.

In 2019, I obtained a Master in Biology at Ghent University. In 2024, I finished my PhD in plant Interactomics. Currently, I am the coordinator of the Plant Single Cell platform, located within the Vascular Development group of Bert De Rybel.

Wei Xiao earned his PhD at ZMBP, University of Tuebingen, Germany, in 2022, supervised by Prof. Laura Ragni. Following that, he completed a one-year postdoctoral position at ZMBP, University of Tuebingen, Germany, supervised by Prof. Laura Ragni. In 2023, he is working as a Postdoctoral fellow in the group of vascular development, explicitly focusing on the vascular redevelopment in Selaginella moellendorffii.

Predoctoral fellow @ Vascular Development

Yanbiao obtained his master's degree in cell biology from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in 2019, and then worked as a scientific research assistant in the same group for one year. In October 2020, he received the CSC scholarship funded by the China Scholarship Council and joined the vascular development group to pursue a doctoral degree. His project focuses on the study of phase transition of Arabidopsis root apical meristem from young to adult, involving oriented cell divisions and cell proliferation.