Insights into the MAZE project - Accessing diversity of maize to improve quantitative traits

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In this episode Prof. Dr. Chris Schön shares insights about her research especially within the MAZE project which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The goal of the MAZE project is to analyze the diversity of landraces and make them available to widen the diversity of germplasm we use today.

Prof. Schön (b. 1963) studied agricultural sciences at Hohenheim University and Oregon State University, USA. After receiving her doctorate, she worked at KWS SAAT AG, after which she served as Director of the State Plant Breeding Institute at Hohenheim University, where she completed her postdoctoral studies in the field of plant breeding in 2006. She has held a full professorship at TUM since 2007. Prof. Schön is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, member of the senate of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and member of numerous national and international scientific advisory councils. She played a leadership role in establishing Synbreed, an interdisciplinary network for genome-based breeding research on plants and animals.

The research of Prof. Schön is focused on the optimization of agricultural processes through the integration of molecular biology technologies. This primarily involves the use of molecular markers in breeding crop plants. Her work is also concerned with the characterization of native biodiversity and the identification of its functional characteristics as well as the development of optimized breeding strategies for complex properties.

 

More information:
All details about the MAZE project
Computomics' participation in MAZE Phase 2