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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.
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Potato plants during the greenhouse experiments in which beneficial soil bacteria were applied to the roots. Photo: Benedicte Albrectsen
Researchers have shown that two soil bacteria can work together to influence potato development. The bacterial partnership triggered distinct responses in potato plants and was associated with earlier tuber initiation and improved yield under greenhouse conditions. The findings suggest that combinations of beneficial soil bacteria could become a valuable tool for potato growers in the future.
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Barbora Pařízková is studying root development in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings (photo: Gabrielle Beans).
A chance encounter between a plant physiologist and a computational biologist at Umeå University’s interdisciplinary "IceLab Camp" has developed into an ongoing collaboration exploring how plants regulate root growth in response to nutrients. Mathematical models were a crucial component to bypass a major experimental bottleneck.
Read more: Graduate course collaboration sparks new plant growth insights
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In the DYNAMO project, Laura Bacete Cano uses advanced microscopy to study how the structure and signalling of the cell wall influence plant development (photo: Mattias Pettersson, Umeå University).
The cell wall gives plants strength and structure, but contrary to what one might assume, it is not a rigid structure. Instead, it is highly dynamic and constantly interacts with the rest of the cell and the neighbouring cells as the plant grows. There are still many open questions about the nature of these interactions and this is what Laura Bacete Cano investigates in her project DYNAMO, recently funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Read more: New project investigates how plants stay strong while growing