Gerd Jürgens (also spelt Juergens) (born 1949) is a plant developmental biologist and emeritus Director of the Cell Biology Department at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology[1][2] and Head of the Center for Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP) at the Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen. He has published extensively in leading journals, including eight papers in the journal Nature as well as various articles in the journals Cell, Science, Journal of Cell Biology and The Plant Journal.[3]

Research

During his postdoctoral years in the 1980s he worked with Nobel prize winners Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg on the topic of Drosophila melanogaster embryogenesis.[4] At the age of 37 he made the switch from animal to plant research and became one of the first researchers to work on what was later to become the model plant organism: Arabidopsis thaliana. He was responsible for pioneering research in the genetic dissection of plant embryogenesis. Using the genetically-tractable plant Arabidopsis thaliana he conducted the first forward genetic screen (using mutagenesis with 0.3% ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS)) looking for embryonic defects.[5] His laboratory discovered and characterized the protein KNOLLE, which is required for cytokinesis and was the first protein known to exclusively target the cell plate in plant cells.[6][7] Jürgens also worked extensively on the ARF-GEF GNOM.[8][9] Both knolle and gnom were first discovered in his embryonic mutant screens.[5]

Prizes and awards

Jürgens won the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (the highest research award in Germany) in 1995.

References

  1. ↑ "Jürgens, Gerd". Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (in German). 21 October 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  2. ↑ "Cell Biology". www.eb.tuebingen.mpg.de. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  3. ↑ "Zentrum für Molekularbiologie der Pflanzen - Pub". Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 26 December 2010.
  4. ↑ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1995". NobelPrize.org. 20 October 1942. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  5. 1 2 Mayer, Ulrike; Ruiz, Ramón A. Torres; Berleth, Thomas; Miséra, Simon; Jürgens, Gerd (1991). "Mutations affecting body organization in the Arabidopsis embryo". Nature. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 353 (6343): 402–407. Bibcode:1991Natur.353..402M. doi:10.1038/353402a0. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 4282406.
  6. ↑ Lukowitz, Wolfgang; Mayer, Ulrike; Jürgens, Gerd (1996). "Cytokinesis in the Arabidopsis Embryo Involves the Syntaxin-Related KNOLLE Gene Product". Cell. Elsevier BV. 84 (1): 61–71. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)80993-9. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 8548827. S2CID 6493229.
  7. ↑ Lauber, Martina H.; Waizenegger, Irene; Steinmann, Thomas; Schwarz, Heinz; Mayer, Ulrike; Hwang, Inwhan; Lukowitz, Wolfgang; Jürgens, Gerd (15 December 1997). "The Arabidopsis KNOLLE Protein Is a Cytokinesis-specific Syntaxin". Journal of Cell Biology. Rockefeller University Press. 139 (6): 1485–1493. doi:10.1083/jcb.139.6.1485. ISSN 0021-9525. PMC 2132613. PMID 9396754.
  8. ↑ Geldner, Niko; Anders, Nadine; Wolters, Hanno; Keicher, Jutta; Kornberger, Wolfgang; Muller, Philippe; Delbarre, Alain; Ueda, Takashi; Nakano, Akihiko; Jürgens, Gerd (2003). "The Arabidopsis GNOM ARF-GEF Mediates Endosomal Recycling, Auxin Transport, and Auxin-Dependent Plant Growth". Cell. Elsevier BV. 112 (2): 219–230. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(03)00003-5. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 12553910. S2CID 9199922.
  9. ↑ Anders, Nadine; Nielsen, Michael; Keicher, Jutta; Stierhof, York-Dieter; Furutani, Masahiko; Tasaka, Masao; Skriver, Karen; Jürgens, Gerd (1 January 2008). "Membrane Association of theArabidopsisARF Exchange Factor GNOM Involves Interaction of Conserved Domains". The Plant Cell. Oxford University Press (OUP). 20 (1): 142–151. doi:10.1105/tpc.107.056515. ISSN 1532-298X. PMC 2254928. PMID 18203920. S2CID 11144074.

Further reading

  • CV
  • "Juergens". Universität Tübingen (in German). 30 November 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  • ZMBP | Universität Tübingen — Website of the Zentrum für Molekularbiologie der Pflanzen (Center for Plant Molecular Biology) where Jürgens works
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