Strategic Research Centre Developmental Biology of Plants
- Reference number
- A3 02:099
- Start and end dates
- 030101-091231
- Amount granted
- 79 000 000 SEK
- Administrative organization
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Research area
- Life Sciences
Summary
The pulp and paper industries are Sweden’s largest net export industries and are central to the current and future economic development of the country. Forests are the major natural resource in Sweden and the fibres extracted from the plant cell walls provide excellent raw material for paper and textiles. Maintaining the competitiveness of the Swedish forest sector will inevitably require the adoption of state-of-the-art tree improvement and genetic engineering approaches. This centre is based on a unique position in tree functional genomics, and the vision for the future is to use these resources in order to create an outstanding research environment for studying key biological processes in a highly detailed, post-genomic fashion to generate knowledge of the basic mechanisms regulating plant growth and development. The Centre is an integrated part of Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC), that by far is the strongest research unit for experimental plant biology in Scandinavia. The ambition of the Centre for Plant Development is to foster young promising scientists to reach world class in forest biotechnology and to transfer knowledge and basic technology to the forest industry. Doctoral student training in forest genetics and tree breeding is carried out through a Graduate School financed by the KK foundation, the industry and SLU.