My career path

I am full professor at Ghent University and group leader at the VIB center of Plant Systems Biology in Belgium. I combine research and education because I think they cannot be separated and they strengthen each other. Hence, apart from my scientific activities, I am intensively involved in education and educational organization. 

My research career started in 1987 at the UGent focusing on how interactions between plant roots and neighboring organisms influence plant growth in a positive way.
Initially, the emphasis was on the symbiosis between legumes and rhizobia, resulting in the formation of new root organs, the nodules, in which the rhizobia reside and fix atmospheric nitrogen for the plant.  At that time, we studied the non-model symbiosis between the tropical legume Sesbania rostrata and the bacterium Azorhizobium caulinodans and could unravel the early signaling events and specific adaptations that have evolved to enable this peculiar nodulation upon water submergence. During my post-doc and early group leader career, we studied long-distance control of nodule organogenesis in the model legume Medicago truncatula and made significant contributions to understand how the nodule number is controlled.
During my early career, I went three times abroad for a prolonged period at the Laboratoire de Biologie des Sols, ORSTOM (Dakar, Sénégal) (Prof. Dreyfus), at the MSU-DOE, Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI, USA) (Prof. De Bruijn) and at the ETH-Zürich, Institute of Plant Sciences (Prof. Potrykus), providing me both international connections and abroad research experience.

In 2005, I became professor at the Ghent University in the currently named Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. This department is also embedded in the VIB Center of Plant Systems Biology of the VIB. Since 2010, I am appointed full-time principal investigator of the Rhizosphere group at VIB. In my group, we still study the molecular communication between roots and rhizosphere microorganisms but the studies go beyond the rhizobia legume interaction as you can read from our web page. In 2017, I became full professor.

I find it very important that our basic research has valuable economic and societal relevance. Together with VIB colleagues, I am  very proud to have established the start-up Aphea.Bio (www.aphea.bio, 2017) focusing on the use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in agriculture. Recently, together with ILVO, I contributed to the start-up Protealis (https://www.protealis.com) aiming at the production of sustainable plant protein for Europe.

In 2021, I graduated with a Master of Science in Biology from Ghent University. My thesis, conducted at the Rhizosphere lab, focused on identifying bacteria capable of assisting lettuce in coping with cold stress. Following graduation, I joined the Lab of Microbiology under the supervision of Professor Anne Willems at Ghent University with Professor Sofie Goormachtig of the Rhizosphere lab as my co-supervisor, contributing to the 'Soja in 1000 tuinen' project. Here, I participated in a large-scale isolation campaign aimed at discovering rhizobia strains within soybean root nodules capable of nodulating soybeans at northern latitudes. Subsequently, in 2022, I obtained an FWO grant to investigate the underlying mechanisms behind variations in nodulation efficiency among different Bradyrhizobium strains, with the goal of optimizing this interaction.

Sonia obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and Biotechnology in 2022 in the group of Prof. Anne Willems (Laboratory of Microbiology, University of Gent) and Prof. Sofie Goormachtig (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology). During her PhD, she studied the effect of low temperatures on the microbiome of two cold tolerant plants, Valerianella locusta and Poa annua, and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The aim was to identify bacteria able to alleviate cold stress in plants. She is now a postdoctoral scientist in the group of Prof. Sofie Goormachtig at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology since 2023. As a part of the BOOSTER project, she investigates how drought shapes maize microbiomes to identify drought-enriched bacteria that might promote plant growth under this abiotic stress and understand their mode of action.

Post-doctoral fellow

Judith is a postdoctoral scientist in the group of Prof. Sofie Goormachtig at VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (FWO fellowships) since 2019. She obtained her PhD in 2016 in the group of Prof. Dirk Inze, where she focused on the regulation of Arabidopsis leaf growth by sugars. After her PhD, she joined the group of Dr. Vanessa Wahl at the Department of Prof. Mark Stitt in the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (Potsdam, Germany), where she studied the effect of limited nitrogen availability on flowering and tuberization in Arabidopsis and potato. In her current research, she uses this expertise to investigate plant-microbe symbiotic interactions in different plant crops. Her main focus is unraveling the role of sugar signaling during soybean and pea nodulation.

I completed my Master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology at Ghent University in 2021. During my studies, I conducted my Master’s thesis research in the Vascular Development lab at PSB. Presently, I am pursuing my PhD through a collaborative effort involving the company Aphea.Bio and two research labs at PSB: the Advanced Live Cell Imaging and Rhizosphere labs. My current research focuses on unraveling the mode-of-action of biocontrol agents against fungal pathogens in wheat.

Predoctoral fellow

In the context of my master dissertation, I performed research at the Rhizosphere group on the involvement of germin-like proteins (GLPs) in the establishment and progression of arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi (AMF) symbiosis. This thesis was conducted with the aim of increasing the understanding of plant genes, such as GLPs, in mediating AMF colonization, which in the long term may enhance AMF-induced crop growth benefits, and thereby its agricultural applicability as biofertilizer. In 2023, I started my PhD focussing on expanding local soybean cultivation towards northern latitudes. The establishment of symbiosis with indigenous rhizobia strains acclimatized to these regions is crucial for efficient nitrogen fixation and the production of protein-rich beans. The ‘Soy in 1000 Garden’ initiative has unveiled the coexistence of beneficial local Bradyrhizobium sp. and non-diazotrophic Tardiphaga robiniae within functional soybean nodules, raising questions about their role as either symbiotic facilitators or competitive exploiters.