Short biography - Herman Höfte

Dr Herman Höfte received his PhD degree at the University of Ghent (Belgium) on the study of the insecticidal crystal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis and the generation of the first insect-resistant transgenic plants. His thesis supervisor was Marc Van Montagu and his work was carried out in the, at that time, start-up biotechnology company Plant Genetic Systems. He then moved to the laboratory of Maarten Chrispeels at the University of California, San Diego, where he worked as a post-doctoral fellow on the intracellular targeting of vacuolar membrane proteins in plants using aquaporins as a model system. He then took up a position as a research scientist at the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in Versailles, France where he has been studying the synthesis and assembly of cell walls using multidisciplinary approaches, including genetics, live cell imaging, biochemistry and biophysics. He is in particular interested in the synthesis of cellulose and pectin, cell wall integrity signaling and the role of the cell wall in growth control and in responses to the environment. He has also coordinated a large French “Stimulus Initiative” project “Biomass For the Future” aiming at developing new dedicated biomass grasses and uses thereof.