Prof. Dr. Alisdair Fernie

Head of Department Plant Metabolomics, CPSBB Plovdiv

Group leader Central Metabolism, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (MPG), Potsdam-Golm

Professor, University of Potsdam (UP) Potsdam

Prof. Dr. Alisdair Fernie is Group Leader (group Central Metabolism) at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (MPG), Potsdam-Golm, Germany. He is also honorary professor at the University of Potsdam (UP), Germany. Since the establishment of the Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology (CPSBB) in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, he became the Head of Department Plant Metabolomics at CPSBB.

Early work of Prof. Fernie focused on the metabolic regulation of photosynthetic and heterotrophic carbon metabolism. Prof. Fernie has developed extensive expertise in metabolomics and flux profiling as well as studying the genetic control of metabolism with a particular focus on crop species. His studies now embrace both primary and intermediary metabolism.

Selected publications:

Zhu G., Wang S., Huang Z., Zhang S., Liao Q., Zhang C., Lin T., Qin M., Peng M., Yang C., Cao X., Han X., Wang X., van der Knaap E., Zhang Z., Cui X., Klee H., Fernie A.R., Luo J., Huang, S. (2018) Rewiring of the Fruit Metabolome in Tomato Breeding. Cell, 172 (1-2). 249-261.e12. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.12.019

Zhang Y., Beard K., Swart C., Bergmann S., Krahnert I., Nikoloski Z., Graf A., Ratcliffe G., Sweetlove L., Fernie A., Obata T. (2017) Protein-protein interactions and metabolite channelling in the plant tricarboxylic acid cycle. Nature Communications 8, Article number: 15212 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15212

Tohge T., Wendenburg R., Ishihara H., Nakabayashi R., Watanabe M., Sulpice R., Hoefgen R., Takayama H., Saito K., Stitt M., Fernie A. (2016) Characterization of a recently evolved flavonol-phenylacyltransferase gene provides signatures of natural light selection in Brassicaceae. Nature Communications 7, Article number: 12399, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12399

Bolger A., Scossa F., […] and Fernie A. (2014) The genome of the stress-tolerant wild tomato species Solanum pennellii. Nature Genetics 46:1034–1038 DOI: 10.1038/ng.3046

Heise R., Arrivault S., Szecowka M., Tohge T., Nunes-Nesi A., Stitt M., Nikoloski Z., Fernie A. (2014) Flux profiling of photosynthetic carbon metabolism in intact plants, Nature Protocols 9:1803–1824