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The Swedish Metabolomics Centre provides researchers with expertise and infrastructure for mass spectrometry-based metabolite analysis. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
The Swedish Metabolomics Centre, based at UPSC, has secured continued support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The new funding will strengthen the centre's long-term development and its ability to provide advanced metabolomics services to researchers across Sweden.
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Yanjun Zan plans to study how genes and the environment interact, initially using Arabidopsis as a model system. Photo: Malin Grönborg
Why can the same environmental change benefit one plant but stress another? And could their genetic information help us predict these different responses? These questions are at the heart of Yanjun Zan’s research. As a new group leader at Umeå Plant Science Centre and Integrated Science Lab (IceLab), he combines plant biology, genetics and computational approaches to understand how genetic differences shape plant responses to environmental change.
Read more: Predicting how plants respond to their environment
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Julie Ducla has investigated how plants respond when the roots of neighbouring plants are damaged. Photo: Anne Honsel
Below ground, plant roots grow alongside those of neighbouring plants, but little is known about how they respond when a neighbouring root is damaged. In her doctoral thesis, Julie Ducla shows that healthy plants can detect this damage and redirect their root growth away from it.
Read more: Plants sense damage to neighbouring roots - and grow away
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Laura Bacete Cano (left) and Anna Renström (right) received prizes at the SPPS Conference 2026 in Helsinki. Photo left: Courtesy of Laura Bacete Cano. Photo right: Anne Honsel.
Laura Bacete Cano and Anna Renström from Umeå Plant Science Centre were among the researchers recognised with prizes at this year's conference of the Scandinavian Plant Physiology Society (SPPS) in Helsinki. Laura received the SPPS Early Career Prize, while Anna was one of two recipients of the SPPS PhD Thesis Prize.
Read more: Two UPSC researchers receive awards at SPPS Conference 2026
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Maria Eriksson will spend her upcoming sabbatical at the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Photo: Elsa Hertzberg
Maria Eriksson has been awarded a SSF Sabbatical grant from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. The grant will enable her to spend a sabbatical at the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, where she will study how the plant's internal biological clock helps coordinate cell division and growth. We asked her five questions about the project and her upcoming stay[AH1.1] starting in autumn this year.
Read more: Maria Eriksson on her upcoming sabbatical in Cambridge
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Krisztina Ötvös at the EB Research Institute in Salzburg, where she works on translational research for Epidermolysis bullosa. Photo: Bianca Plörer, DEBRA Austria
About 13 years after leaving UPSC, Krisztina Ötvös looks back on a career driven by scientific curiosity, a desire to take on new challenges and a commitment to doing high-quality science. For her, every career move built on the scientific thinking and transferable skills she had developed before.
Read more: Following scientific challenges across disciplines
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Leonard Blaschek studies how trees build wood and how this shapes one of our most important renewable materials. Photo: Malin Grönborg
Wood is one of humanity's oldest building materials. But before it becomes timber, it is a living tissue. That is what fascinates Leonard Blaschek. As a new group leader at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, he wants to understand how trees build wood and why evolution shaped it the way it is.
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Stéphanie Robert, professor at SLU and group leader at Umeå Plant Science Centre, has been elected to the EMBO Membership. Photo: Erik Abel
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) has elected Stéphanie Robert as one of its newest members. The lifelong honour recognises outstanding contributions to the life sciences and welcomes her into an international community of more than 2,100 leading researchers.
Read more: Stéphanie Robert joins Europe's leading life scientists as new EMBO Member
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As leaves age, plants recycle valuable nutrients before the cells eventually die. The new study identifies arginine as a signal that helps determine when this transition becomes irreversible. Photo: Clément Boussardon
Before a leaf dies, plants recover nutrients that the rest of the plant can reuse for growth and survival. Researchers at Umeå Plant Science Centre have now identified a metabolic “point of no return” linked to the amino acid arginine. The study suggests that plants use arginine as a signal to determine whether recovery remains possible or whether cells should commit to death, a discovery that could eventually help improve crop resilience under environmental stress.
Read more: Scientists identify the “point of no return” in dying leaves
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Juan Alonso-Serra started his research group at Umeå Plant Science Centre in early 2026. Photo: Malin Grönborg
Water moves through every growing plant, changing the pressure inside cells. Juan Alonso-Serra, a new group leader at Umeå Plant Science Centre, wants to understand how plants sense these changes and turn them into molecular signals that guide growth.