Visiting scientist: our alumna Prof. Dr. Roberta Paulert from Federal University of Paraná in Brazil will stay with us for three months

Welcome back, Roberta, from 36°C-hot Brazil to luckily sunny and currently not awfully cold Münster. Supported by a fellowship from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD, our alumna Dr. Roberta Paulert who is now Professor for Biotechnology at the Federal University of Paraná in Palotina, Brazil, will be in our institute for three months to start a new collaborative research project. Roberta obtained her PhD from our university in 2010 for her project on ulvan as a plant biostimulant. Beyond research and teaching, Roberta has also taken on responsibility for the Pharmaceutical Botanical Garden in Palotina. Our new project will build on her expertise both in plant protection and secondary plant metabolites. We will see how different ulvans from green algae and different chitosans can induce plant disease resistance and boost production of pharmaceutically relevant secondary metabolites in plants. We hope that the short three months will allow us to generate sufficient data and ideas to lay the ground for a strong collaborative research project. Already, one of Roberta’s students, Renata Filler, will join us for two months in April and May, possibly to continue some of Roberta’s work. Hopefully then, work on ulvans that started with Roberta and was taken up by the doctoral projects of first Rebecca Melcher, then Marten Neumann will continue in our group.