- Written by Dimitar Kirkovski
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.
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: 15212.
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: 12399.
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 plant. Nature Protocols 9:1803–1824.