Alisdair Fernie leads the Central Metabolism Group at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. His research group focuses on understanding the co-ordination of energy metabolism and assimilate partitioning as well as understanding the genetics underpinning metabolic regulation. Forward and reverse genetics coupled with metabolomics and yield physiology are the research tools used in these studies - which additionally aim at determining which reactions are canalized and which display environmental plasticity. With respect to source-sink interactions, most research in the laboratory is carried out on cassava, tomato and common bean. Source-to-sink interaction | Metabolic Regulation |Tomato |Cassava |Common bean

Julia von Steimker is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Central Metabolism Workgroup of Alisdair Fernie at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany. She is interested in understanding how metabolism changes upon environmental perturbations using diverse populations of crops. Within the CASS project she is exploring metabolic variation and flux in cassava transgenic lines. Metabolic flux | Natural variation | Source-sink interaction | Crops | Cassava