Ralf Reski

Ralf Reski
Reski in 2018
Born (1958-11-18) 18 November 1958 (age 65)
Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Ralf Reski (born 18 November 1958 in Gelsenkirchen) is a German professor of plant biotechnology and former dean of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Freiburg.[1] He is also affiliated to the French École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg (ESBS)[2] and Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.[3]

Biography

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Ralf Reski studied biology, chemistry and pedagogy at the Universities of Giessen and Hamburg. He was awarded his doctorate in Genetics in 1990 by the University of Hamburg and received his habilitation in General Botany in 1994. From 1996 until 1999, he was a Heisenberg-Fellow of the German Research Foundation.[4]

He was appointed Distinguished Professor and entitled Ordinarius at the University of Freiburg in 1999, where he became Head of the newly established Department of Plant Biotechnology.[5] From 2001 until 2011, Reski was Director Plant Biotechnology at the Centre for Applied Biosciences (ZAB, University of Freiburg).[6] From 2010 until 2019 he was elected senator and speaker in the academic senat of the university Freiburg.[7]

Reski is founding principal investigator (PI) of four Excellence Clusters: the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies (bioss),[8] the Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies (CIBSS),[9] Living, Adaptive and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems (livMATs),[10] and of the Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine (SGBM).[11] Since 2011, he also is Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). SGBM, bioss and FRIAS are funded within the German Universities Excellence Initiative.[12] Furthermore, Reski is a founding PI of the Freiburg Initiative for Systems Biology (FRISYS)[13] funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Reski was one of the board members of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) from 2009 to 2012.[14] Since 2010, Reski is coordinator of QualFEEM, a TEMPUS-project for the improvement of Higher Education in the field of "environmental management and ecology" at the Russian Universities in Altai, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tyumen.[15] In 2011 Reski was co-founder of the Trinational Institute for Plant Research (TIP).[16]

In 2011 Ralf Reski was elected as lifetime member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German:Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften).[17]

In 2012 he organized a Plant Biology Congress[18] which attracted 1000 researchers from about 60 countries.

In 2013 Reski became senior fellow at the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS).[19]

In 2015 he became the project coordinator of the Erasmus Programme "Trans-regional environmental awareness for sustainable usage of water resources" – in short TREASURE-WATER [20] that addresses higher education and training for the sustainable management of shared natural water resources in the area of the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan.[21]

Research

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Moss bioreactor with Physcomitrella patens

Reski's main area of research with more than 250 scientific publications[22] comprises the genetics, proteomics, metabolism, and cell development of moss plants, using the technique of homologous recombination for creating knockout mosses by gene targeting in a reverse genetics approach.[23] Reski and his coworkers have identified hitherto unknown genes with biotechnological implication for agriculture and forestry.[24] The cultivation of moss cells and their utilization for Molecular Farming is another main focal point of his research.[25]

In 1998, Reski proposed the moss Physcomitrella patens as a model plant in biological research.[26] Since then, he has contributed significantly towards mosses becoming a model plant in biological research on a worldwide scale. In 2004, Reski and colleagues from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan successfully proposed the genome of Physcomitrella patens for complete sequencing at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a facility of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).[27] The genome was released in December 2007,[28] with the bioinformatic work spearheaded by Reski's group[29] and financed by the German National Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG). To date, the Freiburg Chair of Plant Biotechnology hosts an online database of Physcomitrella patens comprising the genomic sequence, annotated gene models and supplemental information.[30] Due to its scientific and economic importance, the genome of Physcomitrella patens has been chosen as a "flagship plant genome" by the DOE JGI in 2010.[31]

Also in 1998, Reski and coworkers generated a knockout moss by deleting an ftsZ gene and thus identified the first gene essential in the division of an organelle in any eukaryote.[32] Based on the results of further research on the ftsZ-gene family, Ralf Reski coined the term "plastoskeleton", analogous to the term "cytoskeleton", in 2000 and presented a new concept in cell biology of how chloroplasts, the green cell organelles of plants, change shape and divide.[33][34][35]

In 1999, the chemical company BASF invested more than 30 Mio. DM in a four-year cooperation project with Reski to identify new genes which may be able to make crop plants more resistant to drought, cold and attack by pests. Plants with improved nutritional value (vitamins or polyunsaturated fatty acids) have also been in the research focus of their collaboration.[36] In the same year, Reski invented the moss bioreactor[37] and founded "greenovation Biotech GmbH",[38] a biotechnology company utilizing moss bioreactors for the production of pharmaceuticals.[39] In 2011, Reski and coworkers produced recombinant, biologically active human factor H in a moss bioreactor.[40] In 2017 the first clinical trial phase 1 was completed testing the enzyme Alpha-galactosidase, which was produced in moss, to treat Fabry disease.[41]

In 2010, Reski established the International Moss Stock Center (IMSC), which stores and freely distributes moss strains, transgenics and ecotypes. The IMSC assigns accession numbers that can be used in scientific publications to facilitate identification and availability of the respective samples.[42]

Also in 2010, Reski and colleagues discovered a new mechanism of gene regulation; the epigenetic gene silencing by microRNAs.[43][44]

Reski is directly involved in Mossclone, a European project (7th Framework Programme, FP7) which started in 2012 and aims to develop an air quality monitoring tool by using devitalized moss clones.

In 2016, Reski and colleagues identified a homeobox gene as the master regulator for embryo development[45] and a basic genetic toolkit for stoma development[46] and in 2017 they described that the moss cuticle was ancestral to lignin evolution.[47]

In 2018, Reski and colleagues analysed the six RecQ proteins in Physcomitrella patens and in Arabidopsis thaliana.[48] They found that moss RecQ4, the ortholog of the human Bloom syndrome protein, acts as a repressor of homologous recombination, protects the genome from mutations, and is pivotal for embryogenesis and subsequent plant development.[48] In contrast, moss RecQ6 acts as a potent enhancer of gene targeting.[49]

In 2023, Reski and colleagues published the genome sequence of a living fossil, the moss Takakia lepidozioides from Tibet. It faces extinction due to climate change.[50]

Scientific board memberships

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Editorial board memberships of scientific journals

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  • 2002–2012 Plant Cell Reports[58][59]
  • 2004–2006 Plant Biology (Guest-Editor)
  • 2008–2013 Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology[60]
  • 2009–2012 Plant Cell Reports, editor-in-chief[61]
  • 2010–2012 Biology International[62]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Curriculum Vitae (CV) Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski" (PDF). plant-biotech.net. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Accueil". ESBS – Université de Strasbourg. Archived from the original on Jan 5, 2022. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  3. ^ "Ralf Reski". FRIAS. Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  4. ^ "Ralf Reski". ResearchGate. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  5. ^ "Ralf Reski - a risk taker who enjoys his work". bio-pro.de. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  6. ^ "Plant Biotechnology". Zentrum für Angewandte Biowissenschaften. Archived from the original on 2011-09-17.
  7. ^ "Senat, Senatsausschüsse und -kommissionen – Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg".
  8. ^ "bioss homepage". Archived from the original on 19 May 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  9. ^ "Investigators". www.cibss.uni-freiburg.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  10. ^ "FIT Freiburger Zentrum für interaktive Werkstoffe und bioinspirierte Technologien". www.fit.uni-freiburg.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  11. ^ Profile on SGBM homepage
  12. ^ "Homepage University of Freiburg, Excellence Initiative". Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  13. ^ "FRISYS – Freiburg Initiative for Systems Biology". 6 March 2012. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  14. ^ Former board members of the IUBS
  15. ^ "CORDIS | European Commission". Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  16. ^ Official TIP homepage
  17. ^ "HAW members since 1909". www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  18. ^ "Think globally, act locally - Plant Biology Congress 2012 — Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies". Archived from the original on 2013-01-06. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  19. ^ "Ralf Reski < Freiburg-Strasbourg Fellows 2013 < Fellows". Archived from the original on 2013-11-01. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
  20. ^ "New curricula for a valuable resource – Office of University and Science Communications". www.pr.uni-freiburg.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  21. ^ "Welcome". treasure-water.eu. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  22. ^ "ReskiLab publications". Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  23. ^ Reski, Ralf (1998). "Physcomitrella and Arabidopsis: The David and Goliath of reverse genetics". Trends in Plant Science. 3 (6): 209–210. doi:10.1016/S1360-1385(98)01257-6.
  24. ^ Reski, R.; Frank, W (2005). "Moss (Physcomitrella patens) functional genomics -- Gene discovery and tool development, with implications for crop plants and human health". Briefings in Functional Genomics and Proteomics. 4 (1): 48–57. doi:10.1093/bfgp/4.1.48. PMID 15975264.
  25. ^ Decker, Eva L.; Reski, Ralf (2007). "Moss bioreactors producing improved biopharmaceuticals". Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 18 (5): 393–8. doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2007.07.012. PMID 17869503.
  26. ^ Reski, R. (1998). "Development, genetics and molecular biology of mosses" (PDF). Botanica Acta. 111: 1–15. doi:10.1111/j.1438-8677.1998.tb00670.x.
  27. ^ "Our Projects". DOE Joint Genome Institute. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  28. ^ Rensing, Stefan A.; Lang, Daniel; Zimmer, Andreas D.; Terry, Astrid; Salamov, Asaf; Shapiro, Harris; Nishiyama, Tomoaki; Perroud, Pierre-François; Lindquist, Erika A.; Kamisugi, Yasuko; Tanahashi, Takako; Sakakibara, Keiko; Fujita, Tomomichi; Oishi, Kazuko; Shin-i, Tadasu; Kuroki, Yoko; Toyoda, Atsushi; Suzuki, Yutaka; Hashimoto, Shin-ichi; Yamaguchi, Kazuo; Sugano, Sumio; Kohara, Yuji; Fujiyama, Asao; Anterola, Aldwin; Aoki, Setsuyuki; Ashton, Neil; Barbazuk, W. Brad; Barker, Elizabeth; Bennetzen, Jeffrey L.; Blankenship, Robert (2008). "The Physcomitrella Genome Reveals Evolutionary Insights into the Conquest of Land by Plants". Science. 319 (5859): 64–9. Bibcode:2008Sci...319...64R. doi:10.1126/science.1150646. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0012-3787-A. PMID 18079367. S2CID 11115152.
  29. ^ Schiermeier, Quirin (1999). "German/Swedish venture creates plant biotechnology giant". Nature. 397 (6717): 283. Bibcode:1999Natur.397..283S. doi:10.1038/16754. PMID 9950417.
  30. ^ database cosmoss.org
  31. ^ "Genome Sequencing Center – Providing high-quality whole genome sequencing, assembly and analysis". Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  32. ^ Strepp, René; Scholz, Sirkka; Kruse, Sven; Speth, Volker; Reski, Ralf (1998). "Plant Nuclear Gene Knockout Reveals a Role in Plastid Division for the Homolog of the Bacterial Cell Division Protein FtsZ, an Ancestral Tubulin". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 95 (8): 4368–73. Bibcode:1998PNAS...95.4368S. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.8.4368. JSTOR 44902. PMC 22495. PMID 9539743.
  33. ^ Kiessling, J.; Kruse, S.; Rensing, S. A.; Harter, K.; Decker, E. L.; Reski, R. (2000). "Visualization of a Cytoskeleton-like Ftsz Network in Chloroplasts". The Journal of Cell Biology. 151 (4): 945–50. doi:10.1083/jcb.151.4.945. PMC 2169431. PMID 11076976.
  34. ^ McFadden, G. I. (2000). "Skeletons in the Closet: How Do Chloroplasts Stay in Shape?". The Journal of Cell Biology. 151 (4): F19–22. doi:10.1083/jcb.151.4.F19. PMC 2169437. PMID 11076959.
  35. ^ Reski, Ralf (2002). "Rings and networks: The amazing complexity of FtsZ in chloroplasts". Trends in Plant Science. 7 (3): 103–5. doi:10.1016/S1360-1385(02)02232-X. PMID 11906832.
  36. ^ Schiermeier, Quirin (1999). "German/Swedish venture creates plant biotechnology giant". Nature. 397 (6717): 283. Bibcode:1999Natur.397..283S. doi:10.1038/16754.
  37. ^ Patent "Production of proteinaceous substances", on WIPO-database: [1]
  38. ^ Homepage greenovation Biotech GmbH, Profile of Ralf Reski Archived 2011-11-09 at the Wayback Machine
  39. ^ Decker, Eva L.; Reski, Ralf (2007). "Current achievements in the production of complex biopharmaceuticals with moss bioreactors". Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering. 31 (1): 3–9. doi:10.1007/s00449-007-0151-y. PMID 17701058. S2CID 4673669.
  40. ^ Büttner-Mainik, Annette; Parsons, Juliana; Jérôme, Hanna; Hartmann, Andrea; Lamer, Stephanie; Schaaf, Andreas; Schlosser, Andreas; Zipfel, Peter F.; Reski, Ralf; Decker, Eva L. (2011). "Production of biologically active recombinant human factor H in Physcomitrella". Plant Biotechnology Journal. 9 (3): 373–83. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7652.2010.00552.x. PMID 20723134.
  41. ^ Greenovation gelingt der Durchbruch Portal goingpublic
  42. ^ "Mosses, deep-frozen". Hochschul- und Wissenschaftskommunikation. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  43. ^ Khraiwesh, Basel; Arif, M. Asif; Seumel, Gotelinde I.; Ossowski, Stephan; Weigel, Detlef; Reski, Ralf; Frank, Wolfgang (2010). "Transcriptional Control of Gene Expression by MicroRNAs". Cell. 140 (1): 111–22. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.12.023. PMID 20085706. S2CID 4672676.
  44. ^ Discovery: microRNAs can dirtectly turn off genes
  45. ^ Horst, Nelly A.; Katz, Aviva; Pereman, Idan; Decker, Eva L.; Ohad, Nir; Reski, Ralf (2016). "A single homeobox gene triggers phase transition, embryogenesis and asexual reproduction". Nature Plants. 2 (2): 15209. doi:10.1038/nplants.2015.209. PMID 27250874. S2CID 4677699.
  46. ^ Chater, Caspar C.; Caine, Robert S.; Tomek, Marta; Wallace, Simon; Kamisugi, Yasuko; Cuming, Andrew C.; Lang, Daniel; MacAlister, Cora A.; Casson, Stuart; Bergmann, Dominique C.; Decker, Eva L.; Frank, Wolfgang; Gray, Julie E.; Fleming, Andrew; Reski, Ralf; Beerling, David J. (2016). "Origin and function of stomata in the moss Physcomitrella patens" (PDF). Nature Plants. 2 (12): 16179. doi:10.1038/NPLANTS.2016.179. PMC 5131878. PMID 27892923.
  47. ^ Renault, Hugues; Alber, Annette; Horst, Nelly A.; Basilio Lopes, Alexandra; Fich, Eric A.; Kriegshauser, Lucie; Wiedemann, Gertrud; Ullmann, Pascaline; Herrgott, Laurence; Erhardt, Mathieu; Pineau, Emmanuelle; Ehlting, Jürgen; Schmitt, Martine; Rose, Jocelyn K. C.; Reski, Ralf; Werck-Reichhart, Danièle (2017). "A phenol-enriched cuticle is ancestral to lignin evolution in land plants". Nature Communications. 8: 14713. Bibcode:2017NatCo...814713R. doi:10.1038/ncomms14713. PMC 5344971. PMID 28270693..
  48. ^ a b Wiedemann, Gertrud; Van Gessel, Nico; Köchl, Fabian; Hunn, Lisa; Schulze, Katrin; Maloukh, Lina; Nogué, Fabien; Decker, Eva L.; Hartung, Frank; Reski, Ralf (2018). "RecQ Helicases Function in Development, DNA Repair, and Gene Targeting in Physcomitrella patens". The Plant Cell. 30 (3): 717–736. doi:10.1105/tpc.17.00632. PMC 5894843. PMID 29514942.
  49. ^ Eckardt, Nancy (24 May 2018). "RecQ Proteins: Masters of Genome Surveillance". Plantae. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  50. ^ Ruoyang Hu, Xuedong Li, Yong Hu, Runjie Zhang, Qiang Lv, Min Zhang, Xianyong Sheng, Feng Zhao, Zhijia Chen, Yuhan Ding, Huan Yuan, Xiaofeng Wu, Shuang Xing, Xiaoyu Yan, Fang Bao, Ping Wan, Lihong Xiao, Xiaoqin Wang, Wei Xiao, Eva L. Decker, Nico van Gessel, Hugues Renault, Gertrud Wiedemann, Nelly A. Horst, Fabian B. Haas, Per K.I. Wilhelmsson, Kristian K. Ullrich, Eva Neumann, Bin Lv, Chengzhi Liang, Huilong Du, Hongwei Lu, Qiang Gao, Zhukuan Cheng, Hanli You, Peiyong Xin, Jinfang Chu, Chien-Hsun Huang, Yang Liu, Shanshan Dong, Liangsheng Zhang, Fei Chen, Lei Deng, Fuzhou Duan, Wenji Zhao, Kai Li, Zhongfeng Li, Xingru Li, Hengjian Cui, Yong E. Zhang, Chuan Ma, Ruiliang Zhu, Yu Jia, Meizhi Wang, Mitsuyasu Hasebe, Jinzhong Fu, Bernard Goffinet, Hong Ma, Stefan A. Rensing, Ralf Reski, Yikun He: Adaptive evolution of the enigmatic Takakia now facing climate change in Tibet doi:10.1016/j.cell.2023.07.003
  51. ^ "Biotechnology / Life Sciences in Baden-Württemberg BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg: 10 years". www.bio-pro.de. Archived from the original on 2014-08-31.
  52. ^ Zeitung, Badische (25 April 2009). "Gentechnik – die grüne Gefahr? – Bildung & Wissen – Badische Zeitung". www.badische-zeitung.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  53. ^ Innovationsrat Baden-Württemberg Archived 2015-02-19 at the Wayback Machine
  54. ^ "Vorstand – Deutsches Nationalkomitee (DNK) der IUBS und IUMS". www.iubs-member-germany.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  55. ^ VBIO Advisory board
  56. ^ "IUBS board". Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  57. ^ "Meldungen aus dem Rektorat: Bestellung des wissenschaftlichen Beirats des CeBiTec". ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  58. ^ "Plant Cell Reports".
  59. ^ "Plant Cell Reports".
  60. ^ "Pesticide Study Sparks Backlash". www.science.org. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  61. ^ "Plant Cell Reports". Springer. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  62. ^ Editorial board Biology International
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News articles

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