Professor Dr Detlef Weigel

Detlef Weigel is widely known for his contributions to plant biology. His early work focused on flowering and the patterning of flowers. His group was, for example, the first to demonstrate that developmental control genes from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana could be used to alter the behaviour of other species in a meaningful way. He also discovered how floral patterning is achieved through the interaction of a flower-specific transcription factor with proteins that provide positional cues during both vegetative and floral development, he identified the first plant microRNA mutant, and he laid the foundation for the discovery of the mobile signal controlling flowering.
In more recent years, and in particular since his arrival at the Max Planck Institute, Weigel’s focus has increasingly turned to the study of genetic variation and the performance of hybrids. He and his collaborators developed a haplotype map for Arabidopsis thaliana, a first outside humans. Weigel showed that this species is an excellent model for studying hybrid necrosis, a widespread incompatibility phenomenon in plants including crops. He established, in collaboration with Leopoldina member Jeffery Dangl, autoimmunity as the common underlying principle, and demonstrated that at least one case can be traced back to aberrant interaction of a plant pathogen receptor with another plant protein.