IBH Seminar: Gene Hunting with Barley Mutants

Prof Dr Mats Hansson

Speaker Bios:

Prof Dr Mats Hansson – “I am a bird watcher who started to study biology to learn that biology is more than birds. I found molecular biology to fit my mindset. Microbiology was the only option for advanced molecular biology when I was ready to start PhD studies. Therefore, I ended up writing a PhD thesis about Heme biosynthesis in Bacillus subtilis. Heme is similar to chlorophyll. That took me to the area of chlorophyll biosynthesis as a postdoc in a lab working with barley mutants. I have now found out that there are very many different barley mutants and today it is also possible to do advanced molecular studies in barley. Almost as advanced as in bacteria.”

Summary:

“In my talk, I will explain our work with barley mutants which were induced and isolated mostly between 1928-1983. We have developed methods to identify the genes which are deficient in the mutants. By connecting the genotype with the phenotype, we provide very fundamental and essential information about the gene function.”