Heloise Bastiaanse

I am a post-doctoral researcher in the Bio-energy and Bio-aromatic group of Prof. Wout Boerjan. As a plant geneticist, I am interested in the study of the genetic control of complex quantitative traits in tree species using genomics and computational approaches. In the era of next generation sequencing technologies and the ever-increasing availability of high-throughput genomic data, I have found plant genomics to be a rapidly moving field. Through my early career steps, I have been enjoying its many opportunities, new frontiers and new challenges.

During my PhD with Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech University of Liège, Belgium, and the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research, I genetically mapped apple scab resistance genes to accelerate the delivery of improved apple cultivars in genome informed breeding programs. Then, during my first post doc in the labs of Dr Andrew Groover and Dr Luca Comai, at the USDA Forest Service and University of California Davis, USA, I used integrated analysis combining genome-wide structural variation information with higher level biological data such as gene expression in the model tree poplar. I used bioinformatic approaches to investigate how gene dosage variations at specific chromosomal loci impact individual gene expression and modules of co-expressed genes within broader gene transcriptional networks, and how such coordinated transcriptional response ultimately affects complex quantitative traits.

My current project at the VIB presents new opportunities to apply system genetic approaches in unravelling complex traits. The Bio-energy and Bio-aromatic group has a major activity in the discovery and characterization of metabolites and their genetic control in Arabidopsis, maize and poplar. In the project ‘POPMET’, funded by the European Research Council, we aim at the large-scale identification of metabolites, metabolic pathways and their genes in the model tree poplar. Although there is a steady progress in resolving the functions of unknown genes, the identities of most secondary metabolites in poplar remain unknown. This represents a major gap in information for a comprehensive resolution of the complex biology of tree species. This project brings together VIB experts in the field of plant biochemistry, bioinformatics, statistics and quantitative genetics. We are addressing the challenge of resolving the metabolic pathways, and their genetic control at a system-wide level in the wild European Populus nigra. We are using cutting-edge -omics technologies in 650 genotypes collected along the main rivers of Europe, to screen and integrate the information of metabolite composition, genetic variation including SNP, DNA methylation and structural variation, as well as individual gene expression levels. We will present a network of the integrated gene regulatory and metabolic system for poplar and bring new insights into the biology of this long-lived model tree.

On a personal note, I enjoy rock climbing, backpacking, wood-working and I never joke around.