Barbara De Coninck

Head Plant Health and Protection Laboratory.

Since 2nd grade I knew that I wanted to become a biologist. Although my preference at that time was animal sciences, I became passionate about the fascinating plant world during my studies at KU Leuven. After I finished my PhD on sugar metabolism in plants (2007), I started as a postdoctoral researcher at the Plant-Fungi Interactions group within the Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (KU Leuven) where I studied the interaction between fungi and various model plants. In 2014, I was lucky to join, as a visiting scientist, the laboratory of Prof. D. Craik at the University of Queensland and at the group of Prof. K. Kazan, CSIRO Plant Industry, in Brisbane (Australia). After being employed for 1 year as senior scientist at the VIB department of Plant Systems Biology (PSB, Gent, Belgium), I got the amazing opportunity to start in October 2016 my own “Plant Health and Protection” group as assistant professor at the Division of Crop Biotechnics (Biosystems Department, KU Leuven). Please have a look at the website on what our research is about!