Prof. Dr. Kerstin Kaufmann
Flower development is one of the best understood and economically most important developmental processes in plants. It serves as a model system to understand organ specification and cellular differentiation in plants, starting from pools of undifferentiated 'stem cells' residing in meristems. Flower development is controlled by the action of key-regulatory transcription factors, which 'read' the genomic information and coordinate gene expression to generate specific organ morphologies.
The goal of the Plant Cell and Molecular Biology Group's research is to understand how activities of transcription factors (TFs) result in developmental patterning and organ growth in the flower. They utilize a combination of genome-wide, biochemical and genetic analyses to study regulatory network dynamics across cells and tissues in the developing flower. They also aim to understand the evolutionary conservation of developmental control mechanisms underlying floral diversity.
- ChIP-seq
- ATAC-seq
- Single cell genomics
- Imaging
- In vitro TF-DNA binding assays
Current position
| 2016 - present | Full Professor of Plant Cell and Molecular Biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE) |
Positions held
| 2012 - 2016 | Research Group Leader at the Universität Potsdam (DE) |
| 2011 - 2012 | Group Leader at Wageningen University and Research (NL) |
| 2005 - 2012 | Postdoc/Researcher at Wageningen University and Research (NL) |
| 2002 | DAAD short term postdoctoral researcher at Penn State University (US) |
Academic Education
| 2001 - 2005 | Doctoral Degree in Plant genetics at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (DE) |
| 1996 - 2001 | Diploma in Biology at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (DE) |
Honors/Awards/Fellowships
| 2013 | EMBO Young Investigator Award (EU) |
| 2011 | Sofja-Kovalevskaja Award of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (DE) |
DFG-funded projects
| 2023 - present | CRC - 'Phenotypic Plasticity in Plants' |
| 2020 - present | TRR 175 - 'The Green Hub: Central Coordinator of Acclimation in Plants' |
| 2019 - 2023 | GRK 2403 - 'Dissecting and Reengineering the Regulatory Genome' |
| 2016 - 2022 | DFG-ANR Research Grant - 'Molecular basis of pioneer transcription factor function in flower development' |
Selected activities
| Editorial Board Member 'The Plant Journal' | |
| Associate Editor 'Planta' |
Selected publications
- Heisler MG, Jönsson H, Wenkel S, Kaufmann K. Context-specific functions of transcription factors controlling plant development: From leaves to flowers. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2022 Oct;69:102262. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2022.102262.
- Neumann M, Xu X, Smaczniak C, Schumacher J, Yan W, Blüthgen N, Greb T, Jönsson H, Traas J, Kaufmann K, Muino JM. A 3D gene expression atlas of the floral meristem based on spatial reconstruction of single nucleus RNA sequencing data. Nat Commun. 2022 May 20;13(1):2838. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30177-y.
- Yan W, Chen D, Schumacher J, Durantini D, Engelhorn J, Chen M, Carles CC, Kaufmann K. Dynamic control of enhancer activity drives stage-specific gene expression during flower morphogenesis. Nat Commun. 2019 Apr 12;10(1):1705. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09513-2.