Dr Heiko Ziebell  - BSPP Elected Board Member

John Clarkson

Heiko has always had a strong interest in biology, in particularly plants. He initially trained as horticulturist in a German orchid nursery learning the skills of propagating and nursing different orchid species and hybrids. He continued to study Horticulture at the University of Hannover, Germany. During an ERASMUS exchange year at the Scottish Agricultural College in Auchincruive, Scotland, his interest for scientific research started. He investigated the genetic variation of Scots pine populations using DNA fingerprinting. Back in Hannover, he completed his Diplom Gartenbau thesis (equivalent to a British MSc) in Edgar Maiss' lab working on the properties of a plum pox virus chimera. He continued to work on plant viruses and moved to Cambridge where he started a PhD with John Carr. He investigated the mechanisms underlying cross-protection between cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) strains. Cross-protection is a type of biological control in which mild or attenuated strains of viruses are used to protect plants against infection from more severe and damaging strains of the same virus. The mechanism behind this protection remains unclear, but the most prominent theory offered to explain cross-protection is that it is based on virus-induced gene-silencing, a form of RNA silencing. However, his results indicated that is unlikely that cross-protection by by a CMV mutant occurs by induction of systemic RNA silencing against itself and homologous RNA sequences in wild-type CMV. Recently, he became interested in aphids, the most important vector of CMV in the field. He is currently working on aphid transmission of plant viruses and early events in infection at Cornell University with Prof. Keith Perry. More information can be found on his personal website at www.ziebell.info.