Bert De Rybel

Bert De Rybel graduated from the faculty of Bioscience Engineering of Ghent University in 2005 before starting his PhD research in the group of prof. Tom Beeckman focusing on early lateral root development using a chemical genetics approach. This work sparked his interest in developmental biology and funded by FEBS and Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowships in 2010, he then moved to Wageningen University (NL) where he initiated work on vascular development during early plant embryogenesis in the group of Dolf Weijers. He received a prestigious NWO VIDI grant to continue this line of research in an independent manner in Wageningen. Bert moved back to Belgium in 2015 as a project leader funded by an FWO Odysseus grant establishing research on vascular development in PSB. In 2017, Bert received an ERC Starting Grant, became associate professor at Ghent University and junior group leader at VIB. He is now heading the Vascular Development group at PSB which currently focusses on the molecular networks governing vascular proliferation in plants with a specific focus on cell division orientation in plants. These challenges are mainly tackled using standard molecular biology and biochemistry combined with chemical biology and single cell approaches. More recently, Bert was nominated to enter the EMBO young investigator program.