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Curriculum
Vitae
Dirk Inzé is part-time
Professor at the Ghent University and Scientific Director of the
Department of Plant Systems Biology at the Flanders Interuniversity
Institute for Biotechnology (VIB, Ghent, Belgium) where he heads a group
of 245 employees. Professor Inzé's ambition is to make the Department of
Plant Systems Biology a centre of excellence with emphasis on systems
biology of plant growth and development.
Dirk Inzé graduated in
1979 in Zoology at the Ghent University and in 1984 he received his
Ph.D. in Zoology from the same university with a thesis on the
mechanisms by which Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes the
proliferation of plant cells. In 1990, he was appointed Research
Director of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA)
at the Ghent Joint Laboratory, where he initiated extensive research
programs on the cell cycle and cell death in plants. In 1995, he became
Professor at the Ghent University. In 1998, he founded the
biotechnological research company CropDesign that was acquired by BASF
Plant Science in 2006 and is currently one of the most
active players in high‑throughput analysis of plant genes in cereals. In
1999, he was appointed Deputy Scientific Director of the Department of
Plant Systems Biology of the VIB and he became Director of the
Department in July 2002.
In 1994, Professor Inzé was
laureate of the Körber Stiftung Prize and in 2003 he became EMBO member.
He has served on numerous scientific committees, has been appointed
Visiting Research Professor at the De Montfort University (Leicester,
U.K.) and the University of Plovdiv (Bulgaria), and has been an Honorary
Research Associate of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental
Research (Aberystwyth, U.K.).
Professor Inzé's
research focuses on the understanding of the basic cell cycle machinery
in plants and how the cell cycle is regulated by both developmental
signals and environmental cues.
Professor Inzé is member
of the editorial or advisory boards of The Plant Journal, Journal of Experimental Botany,
Plant Physiology, Plant Biotechnology, The EMBO Journal, Plant and Cell
Physiology.
According to a recent
survey of ISI Essential Science Indicator (Thomson), he is one of the
most cited and influential researchers in his field.
Professor Inzé has
published 318 articles in Scientific Journals with referees’ reports,
21
chapters in books and 39 proceedings of congresses. Professor Inzé has also
been invited to give numerous lectures at international symposia.
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Research activities
Professor Dirk Inzé has
made two very important contributions to plant biology. In the eighties
he and his co-workers have performed extensive research into the
mechanisms by which plants protect themselves against unfavourable
growth conditions such as cold temperatures and water deficit. He
identified genes that are of fundamental importance in the resistance of
plants.
The last 15 years
Professor Inzé has done intensive research into the cell division in
plants. Plants are built of billions of cells. During their life cycle,
plants continuously form new cells in their meristems which organise
themselves to new leaves, stems, flowers, seed and other structures.
This increase in number of cells is therefore the most important factor
that contributes to the form of plants and to the speed by which they
develop. Cells can multiply by a complex molecular mechanism that makes
sure that the DNA present in a cell is perfectly copied and then divided
over the two daughter cells.
Professor Inzé and his
co-workers have contributed extensively to the elucidation of the
molecular processes that control cell division in plants. He showed that
a number of elements in the molecular control system are comparable to
the mechanisms that control cell division in humans. Although plants and
animals started to evolve separately more then a billon years ago, the
basic mechanisms of cell division seem to have been partially conserved.
Professor Inzé recently
found new genes in plants that now seem to play a role also in the cell
division in humans. As a derailment of the cell division process in
humans leads to cancer, the research of cell division in plants is also
very important in the medical field.
The team of Professor
Inzé is a world leader in the research of the cell cycle in plants.
Professor Inzé has the ambition in the next years, to further extend the
knowledge of the mechanisms that control cell division and yield in
plants. Biological processes are extremely complex and during the last
years scientists came to the conclusion that new approaches are
necessary to understand this complexity. Professor Inzé has been
heading, during the last 6 years, the “Department of Plant Systems
Biology” of the University of Ghent and the Flanders Institute for
Biotechnology (VIB). With his co-workers he aims to unravel the complex
processes by which plants regulate cell division and growth.
The approach that is
used is called Systems Biology, a brand new field in Biology, where
accurate models are made of complex processes using a combination of
molecular biology, high throughput functional studies and
bioinformatics. Professor Inzé is interested in the way the cell cycle
is integrated in the development of plants. This research is not only of
great importance from a fundamental point of view but also has immense
economic potential. The elucidation of the growth processes in plants is
an important step forward to obtain plants with considerable higher
yield.
Professor Inzé is
convinced that plants play an important role in building a sustainable
economy. Plants have the potential to offer partial solutions to the
challenges that man has to face in the next 100 years. The most
important challenges are delivering high qualitative food for the
exponentially growing world population, securing enough water supplies,
safe guarding of biodiversity and finding a solution for the rapidly
decreasing world oil reserves. Professor Inzé illustrates this by two
examples:
Supplying the world with
enough food is a big challenge. The current world population of 6.6
billion people grows with 80 million a year. Already now we are not
capable of providing enough food and a minimum of life standard to 1
billion people and these problems will become more critical when the
world population will have grown till 8 to 11 billion in 2050. An
enhanced food production, made possible by molecular research of plants,
will contribute to a large extent to solve this urgent problem.
Research into the cell
division and growth in plants has lead, under the impulse of VIB, to the
establishment of the biotech company CropDesign. CropDesign, which was
in 2006 acquired by BASF plant Science, has identified a number of plant
genes that, after introduction into rice plants, enhanced the yield
considerably. According to Professor Inzé there is no doubt that these
findings will have an enormous impact on the world food production.
Oil is a natural carbon
containing raw material and it is known to everyone that in 2060 the
world petroleum reserves will be almost exhausted. Oil is not only used
as fuel but is also the basis of many derived products such as plastics.
The impact of the decreasing oil reserves on our oil-driven economy is
already shown by the high oil prices. How can plants offer a solution to
this problem? One of the raw carbon containing materials that shows an
alarming increase is carbon dioxide. Plants transfer carbon dioxide into
biomass in a process called photosynthesis. The energy that is captured
in this way can be transformed into renewable materials and fuels such
as ethanol and bio-diesel.
Combustion of
bio-ethanol and bio-diesel releases again the energy with carbon dioxide
as only rest product. The carbon dioxide is then again fixed by the
plants. In this way plants can be used to obtain an ecologic and
sustainable energy production. The US Department of Energy (DOE) aims at
getting 50% of all carbon containing energy out of plants, whereas now
most of it is delivered by oil. Extensive research into the mechanism by
which plants fix carbon dioxide and transform it into biomass will
undoubtedly allow to optimise these processes. The research group of
Professor Inzé is spear-heading the research into the mechanisms that
control biomass and it is their ultimate ambition to make major
contributions to the production of plants that can be used much more
efficiently for the production of carbon containing materials and fuels.
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Report of the Jury (April
2, 2005)
Dirk INZE
is the recipient of this year’s FRANCQUI PRIZE for Biological and
Medical Sciences. Dr. INZE is a plant biologist from the University of
Gent and the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology. His work has centred
on the responses of plants to oxidative stress and the impact of control
of cell division on plant development.
Dr. INZE’s
work on the field of plant sciences has wide implications because cell
division is common to all of life. He is therefore a fitting recipient
of this prestigious prize and a true ambassador for Belgian science.
His
discoveries have led to a better appreciation of the survival and growth
of plant life in adverse conditions. This has major implications for
agriculture and the development of hardier and more productive plants
that are likely to become increasingly important as our need for food
and alternative energy supplies increases.
The central
question Dr. INZE and his team addressed was whether cell division
drives growth and development or follows a genetic plan. Together with
his team he showed conclusively that disturbed cell division has no
major impact on plant form and function. Their results strongly favour
a dominant genetic influence on development.
Dr. INZE
has had the foresight to translate these fundamental scientific results
into industrial products. His work illustrates the importance of
outstanding basic scientific discoveries in the elaboration of new
practical advances of use to society at large.
Jury members :
Professor Jesse ROTH
Professor Dr. M.D., FACP
Professor of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
Geriatrician-in-Chief, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System,
Formerly, Scientific Director of Diabetes Branch Chief, National
Institute of Diabetes and Digestive & Kidney Diseases, NIH, Bethesda,
Formerly, Raymond and Anna Lublin, Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine
New York - USA
Chairman
and
Professor Leif ANDERSSON
Uppsala Biomedical Center
Uppsala University
Sweden
Professor Rudi BUSSE
Institut fuer Kardiovaskulaere Physiologie
Klinikum der J.W. Goethe-Universitaet
Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Professor Jean-Charles CEROTTINI
Director Lausanne Branch
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
Epalinges - SwitZerland
Professor Richard FRACKOWIAK
Functionnal Imaging Laboratory
Londen - UK
Professor Willem GRUISSEM
Institute of Plant Sciences
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zurich - Switzerland
Professor Virginia LEE
Director Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Philadelphia - USA
Professor Sten ORRENIUS
Professor emeritus Institute of Environmental Medicine
Karolinska Instituted
Stockholm - Sweden
Professor Olli SILVENNOINEN
Institute of Medical Technology
University of Tampere
Finland
Professor Ivo TOUW
Erasmus University Medical Center
Rotterdam - The Netherlands
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