Dr. Markus Schmid

Biography

Markus Schmid works on the flowering process model in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, aiming to understand the environmental factors influencing a plant's decision to flower and how this process is regulated. His research emphasizes the importance of flowering control as a complex genetic circuitry that integrates environmental and endogenous signals. Genetic analyses have revealed distinct, genetically defined pathways that regulate flowering responses to specific inputs, yet it has become evident that important flowering time genes are regulated by single inputs, integrating multiple, conflicting signals to control flowering induction. This research provides plants with developmental plasticity regarding the timing of their floral transition. Schmid's work primarily employs a combination of molecular biology, genetic techniques, and high-throughput sequencing methods such as ChIP-seq and RNA-seq to unravel the transcription factor network that integrates various environmental signals affecting flowering. His group is particularly focused on understanding how trehalose-6-phosphate and general sugar signals are integrated within the canonical network regulating flowering.

Research Interests