Assignments and research activities

• Analysis of the biology, distribution, epidemiology, and control of plant viruses infecting cereals and sugar beet. Focus on soil-borne viruses in cereals
• Molecular characterization of plant viruses
• Molecular- and cell biological characterization of virus-vector-plant interactions
• Development of Methods for the diagnosis of plant viruses
• Resistance screening of winter barley and winter wheat
• Current projects:
  • Virus-move: Illumination of the transmission mechanism of Soil-borne wheat mosaic virus by its vector, Polymyxa graminis and identification of novel resistance factors in barley. (DFG)
  • FuReWheat: Resistance of winter wheat towards soil-borne viruses in the face of climate change (BLE)
  • Rhamnobeta: Investigations on infection preventing properties of a rhamnolipide-based biological and liquorice extract on soil-borne viruses of sugar beet and winter wheat and their plasmodiophoride vectors.(FNR)

Boards, memberships and other activities

• Reviewer for different scientific journals (BMC Plant Biology, Journal für Kulturpflanzen, Journal of Virology, Nanoscale, New Phytologist, Planta, Plant Molecular Biology, PLoS ONE, PLoS Pathogens, Protoplasma, Scientific Reports)
• Guest Editor Frontiers Research Topic: Innovative Approaches to Virus Diagnosis and Control.  
• Member of the German Phytomedical Society (DPG)
• Member of the Gemeinschaft der Förderer und Freunde des Julius Kühn-Instituts (GFF)
• Working Group Diagnosis, Sub-Working Group Virology of the National Plant Protection Organizations

Professional career & education

• since 2017 Team leader at the Julius Kühn-Institut, Institut for Epidemiology and Pathogen Diagnostics, Braunschweig, Germany
• 2012 – 2015 Research Scientist. University of Basel. Department for Environmental Sciences. Basel, Switzerland – Mechanisms of antiviral immune signaling in plants
• 2006 – 2012 Research Scientist. Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes (IBMP-CNRS). Department for Integrative Virology. Strasbourg, France - Plant-virus interactions / Plant resistance mechanisms to virus infection / Development of plant virus-based bio-nanoparticles
• 2007 Dissertation in Biochemistry. University of Potsdam, Germany
• 2003 - 2006 Doctoral student. Max-Planck Institute for molecular Plant Physiology, Department molecular Physiology. Potsdam-Golm, Germany – Plant antiviral defense in Potato
• 2005 (6 months) Marie-Curie-Training in Virology and Cell biology. Scottish Crop Research Institute. Invergowrie, UK.
• 1997 - 2003 Studies in Biochemistry at the University of Potsdam.

Publications at Researchgate

Publications in the Julius Kühn-Institut