Tonni Grube Andersen receives Marie Curie Postdoc Fellowship

Marie Curie grant holder Tonni Grube Andersen

After almost a decade at the University of Copenhagen time to move on has come and with one on the most prestigious European grants for young promising researchers at hand, Tonni Grube Andersen, DNRF Center for Dynamic Molecular Interactions (DynaMo), University of Copenhagen, has chosen to continue his career on the shores of Lake Geneva.

At the University of Lausanne Tonni will work at the Department of Plant Molecular Biology in the laboratory of Niko Geldner. Currently, the major research topic of the laboratory is investigation of the root endodermis; its differentiation and functions. Tonni’s project will be aimed at uncovering the identity of specialized cells in the endodermis. This will help us to understand how nutrients are taken up from the soil and distributed in the plant, which is important in order to decrease the amount of artificial nutrients used for crop production.

Confocal imaging made by Tonni Grube Andersen, published in Nature, August 2012.

Despite his young age, Tonni already has an impressive academic track record including first author papers published in the high ranking scientific journals Nature and The Plant Cell as well as a successful patent application. In December 2012 Tonni was part of the research team awarded the Danish science portal Videnskab.dk prize “Best Danish Research Result 2012”, in July 2013 he was awarded the Nikon Award for Best Presentation at the Bioimaging Workshop Copenhagen 2013, and in November 2013 the University of Copenhagen Innovation Award 2013.  In December 2013 Tonni was granted a two year Intra European Marie Curie Fellowship and it is with this grant that he will now move to Switzerland to commence on an exciting molecular plant biology project.

Tonni holds an MSc degree in Biology-Biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen from 2009. In 2012 he successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Novel molecular tools for crop development and synthesis of natural products: Understanding glucosinolate based defenses in cruciferous plants”. Tonni’s PhD thesis elucidates the molecular mechanisms underlying organization of the defense compounds glucosinolates in Brassicales crops by looking at biosynthesis as well as long-distance transport issues. After obtaining the PhD degree, Tonni continued as a postdoctoral researcher in plant molecular biology at DNRF Center DynaMo where he analyzed protein-protein interactions within the glucosinolate biosynthetic pathway. During his postdoc year at DynaMo, Tonni also developed a novel method that allows for analyzing protein-protein interactions via advanced microscopy with improved proficiency.

Congratulations, Tonni, well done! We wish you all the best with your future career!