Christian Jung (geneticist)

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Christian Jung
Born (1956-09-17) 17 September 1956 (age 67)
Northeim, Lower Saxony, Germany
Education Göttingen University (Ph.D. 1984)
Known forCloning a resistance gene against nematodes in beets
Awards Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation
Scientific career
FieldsPlant genetics, molecular biology
Institutions University of Hannover; University of Munich; Plant Breeding Institute, Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel
Thesis Intrinsic performance and interactions of rye and wheat genomes in triticale  (1984)
Doctoral advisor Gerhard Röbbelen

Christian Jung (born 17 September 1956, Northeim, Lower Saxony, is a plant geneticist and molecular biologist in the Plant Breeding Institute [1] of Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel. [2]

Contents

Career

After internships in agricultural companies in Germany and Canada Jung studied at Göttingen University with Hans Günter Schlegel, and in 1981 obtained a diploma on the basis of the "Detection of nitrogen fixation in two strains of the hydrogen bacterium Alcaligenes latus". [2] He studied at the Institute for Plant Production and Plant Breeding of the same university, where he received his doctorate in 1984 with a thesis on the "Intrinsic performance and interactions of rye and wheat genomes in triticale" supervised by Gerhard Röbbelen. [2]

Later Jung had positions at the University of Hannover [2] and the University of Munich [2] before becoming Professor and Director at the Plant Breeding Institute of Kiel University. [2]

Research

Jung's principal interest is in molecular breeding and the development of pest-resistant crops. In that respect he is known for cloning a resistance gene against nematodes in beets. [3] Other notable work includes cloning the genome of quinoa, [4] and the importance of controlling the time of flowering time in plant breeding. [5] [6]

Awards

In 2005 Jung received the Leibniz Prize [7] awarded by the German Research Foundation.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sugar beet</span> Plant grown commercially for sugar production

A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet. Together with other beet cultivars, such as beetroot and chard, it belongs to the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris but classified as var. saccharifera . Its closest wild relative is the sea beet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quinoa</span> Edible plant in the family Amaranthaceae

Quinoa is a flowering plant in the amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are rich in protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins and dietary minerals in amounts greater than in many grains. Quinoa is not a grass but rather a pseudocereal botanically related to spinach and amaranth, and originated in the Andean region of northwestern South America. It was first used to feed livestock 5,200–7,000 years ago, and for human consumption 3,000–4,000 years ago in the Lake Titicaca basin of Peru and Bolivia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teff</span> Edible annual grass native to the Horn of Africa

Teff, also known as Eragrostis tef, Williams lovegrass, or annual bunch grass, is an annual grass, a species of lovegrass native to the Horn of Africa, notably to both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is cultivated for its edible seeds, also known as teff. Teff was one of the earliest plants domesticated. It is one of the most important staple crops in Ethiopia.

<i>Oryza sativa</i> Species of plant

Oryza sativa, having the common name Asian cultivated rice, is the much more common of the two rice species cultivated as a cereal, the other species being O. glaberrima, African rice. It was first domesticated in the Yangtze River basin in China 13,500 to 8,200 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant virus</span> Virus that affects plants

Plant viruses are viruses that have the potential to affect plants. Like all other viruses, plant viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that do not have the molecular machinery to replicate without a host. Plant viruses can be pathogenic to vascular plants.

<i>Chenopodium pallidicaule</i> Species of plant

Chenopodium pallidicaule, known as cañihua, canihua or cañahua and also kañiwa or kaniwa, is a species of goosefoot, similar in character and uses to the closely related quinoa.

<i>Radopholus similis</i> Species of roundworm

Radopholus similis is a species of nematode known commonly as the burrowing nematode. It is a parasite of plants, and it is a pest of many agricultural crops. It is an especially important pest of bananas, and it can be found on coconut, avocado, coffee, sugarcane, other grasses, and ornamentals. It is a migratory endoparasite of roots, causing lesions that form cankers. Infected plants experience malnutrition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White mustard</span> Species of flowering plant

White mustard is an annual plant of the family Brassicaceae. It is sometimes also referred to as Brassica alba or B. hirta. Grown for its seeds, it is used to make the condiment mustard, as a fodder crop, or as a green manure. It is now widespread worldwide, although it probably originated in the Mediterranean region.

<i>Crocus sativus</i> Species of flowering plant

Crocus sativus, commonly known as saffron crocus or autumn crocus, is a species of flowering plant in the iris family Iridaceae. A cormous autumn-flowering cultivated perennial, unknown in the wild, it is best known for the culinary use of its floral stigmas as the spice saffron. Human cultivation of saffron crocus and the trade and use of saffron have endured for more than 3,500 years and span different cultures, continents, and civilizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven D. Tanksley</span> American geneticist

Steven Dale Tanksley is the Chief Technology Officer of Nature Source Improved Plants. Prior to founding Nature Source Improved Plants, Tanksley served as the Liberty Hyde Bailey professor of plant breeding and biometry and chair of the Genomics Initiative Task Force at Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at Cornell University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sorghum</span> Species of grain

Sorghum bicolor, commonly called sorghum and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the grass genus Sorghum cultivated for its grain. The grain is used for food for humans; the plant is used for animal feed and ethanol production. Sorghum originated in Africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions.

<i>Chenopodium berlandieri</i> Species of edible flowering plant

Chenopodium berlandieri, also known by the common names pitseed goosefoot, lamb's quarters, and huauzontle (Nahuatl) is an annual herbaceous plant in the family Amaranthaceae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nematode</span> Phylum of worms

The nematodes, roundworms or eelworms constitute the phylum Nematoda. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but there are many that are parasitic. The parasitic worms (helminths) are the cause of soil-transmitted helminthiases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maize</span> Species of grass cultivated as a food crop

Maize, also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native Americans planted it alongside beans and squashes in the Three Sisters polyculture. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears. The ears yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern commercial varieties, these are usually yellow or white; other varieties can be of many colors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nagendra Kumar Singh</span> Indian agricultural scientist (born 1958)

Nagendra Kumar Singh is an Indian agricultural scientist. He is presently a National Professor Dr. B.P. Pal Chair and JC Bose National Fellow at ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He was born in a small village Rajapur in the Mau District of Uttar Pradesh, India. He is known for his research in the area of plant genomics, genetics, molecular breeding and biotechnology, particularly for his contribution in the decoding of rice, tomato, wheat, pigeon pea, jute and mango genomes and understanding of wheat seed storage proteins and their effect on wheat quality. He has made significant advances in comparative analysis of rice and wheat genomes and mapping of genes for yield, salt tolerance and basmati quality traits in rice. He is one of the highest cited agricultural scientists from India for the last five years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant breeding</span> Humans changing traits, ornamental/crops

Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of applications. The most frequently addressed agricultural traits are those related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, grain or biomass yield, end-use quality characteristics such as taste or the concentrations of specific biological molecules and ease of processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rajeev Kumar Varshney</span> Indian geneticist (born 1973)

Rajeev Kumar Varshney is an Indian agricultural scientist, specializing in genomics, genetics, molecular breeding and capacity building in developing countries. Varshney is currently serving as Director, Western Australian State Agricultural Biotechnology Center; Director, Centre for Crop & Food Innovation; and International Chair in Agriculture & Food Security with the Food Futures Institute at Murdoch University, Australia since Feb 2022. Before joining Murdoch University, Australia he served International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a global agriculture R&D institute, for more than 16 years in different scientific and research leadership roles including Research Program Director for three global research programs– Grain Legumes, Genetic Gains and Accelerated Crop Improvement Program. He has the onus of establishing and nurturing the Center of Excellence in Genomics & Systems Biology (CEGSB), a globally recognized center for genomics research at ICRISAT that made impacts on improving agriculture and development of human resources in several countries including India, China, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, etc. Varshney holds Adjunct/Honorary/Visiting Professor positions at 10 academic institutions in Australia, China, Ghana, Hong Kong and India, including The University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement, University of Hyderabad, Chaudhary Charan Singh University and Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University.

Flhorban 920 (FB920) is a synthetic banana hybrid developed as a cultivar of banana naturally resistant to Black and Yellow Sigatoka fungi in an attempt to replace the highly susceptible Cavendish banana. Additionally, FB920 has been shown to improve root resistance to Burrowing nematodes.

A plant genome assembly represents the complete genomic sequence of a plant species, which is assembled into chromosomes and other organelles by using DNA fragments that are obtained from different types of sequencing technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strawberry cultivation in California</span>

Strawberries in the United States are almost entirely grown in California – 86% of fresh and 98% of frozen in 2017 – with Florida a distant second. Of that 30.0% was from Monterey, 28.6% from Ventura, 20.0% from Santa Barbara, 10.0% from San Luis Obispo, and 9.2% from Santa Cruz. The Watsonville/Salinas strawberry zone in Santa Cruz/Monterey, and the Oxnard zone in Ventura, contribute heavily to those concentrations.

References

  1. "Plant Breeding Institute".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Prof. Dr. Christian Jung".
  3. Cai, Daguang; Kleine, Michael; Kifle, Sirak; Harloff, Hans-Joachim; Sandal, Niels N.; Marcker, Kjeld A.; Klein-Lankhorst, René M.; Salentijn, Elma M. J.; Lange, Wouter; Stiekema, Willem J.; Wyss, Urs; Grundler, Florian M. W.; Jung, Christian (1997). "Positional cloning of a gene for nematode resistance in sugar beet". Science. 275 (5301): 832–834. doi:10.1126/science.275.5301.832. PMID   9012350.
  4. Jarvis, David E.; Ho, Yung Shwen; Lightfoot, Damien J.; Schmöckel, Sandra M.; Li, Bo; Borm, Theo J.A.; Ohyanagi, Hajime; Mineta, Katsuhiko; Michell, Craig T.; Saber, Noha; Kharbatia, Najeh M.; Rupper, Ryan R.; Sharp, Aaron R.; Dally, Nadine; Boughton, Berin A.; Woo, Yong H.; Gao, Ge; Schijlen, Elio G. W. M.; Guo, Xiujie; Momin, Afaque A.; Negrão, Sónia; Al-Babili, Salim; Gehring, Christoph; Roessner, Ute; Jung, Christian; Murphy, Kevin; Arold, Stefan T.; Gojobori, Takashi; van der Linden, C. Gerard; Van Loo, Eibertus N.; Jellen, Eric N.; Maughan, Peter J; Tester, Mark (2017). "The genome of Chenopodium quinoa". Nature. 542 (7641): 307–312. Bibcode:2017Natur.542..307J. doi:10.1038/nature21370. hdl: 10754/622874 . PMID   28178233.
  5. Jung, Christian; Müller, Andreas E. (2009). "Flowering time control and applications in plant breeding". Trends Plant Sci. 14 (10): 563–573. Bibcode:2009TPS....14..563J. doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2009.07.005. PMID   19716745.
  6. Blümel; Dally, Nadine; Jung, Christian (2015). "Flowering time regulation in crops—what did we learn from Arabidopsis?". Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 32: 121–129. doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2014.11.023. PMID   25553537.
  7. "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize".