Van de Poel Lab
Welcome to the website of the Van de Poel lab.
We are a plant science lab, affiliated with the University of Leuven, focusing on plant hormone physiology, with a special interest in ethylene. We also perform translational research on innovations in horticulture. We use molecular genetics, biochemical and physiological experiments to perform basic and applied research in the emerging fields of horticulture and agriculture.
News
The new KU Leuven greenhouse has officially opened its doors. It will function as a core facility, facilitating plenty of advanced plant research!
We are participating in the new Interreg VL-NL project "GreenSense" to develop new sensor technology for horticulture.
Congrats to Dr. Thomas Reher for obtaining a postdoctoral VLAIO innovation mandate.
New equipment:
A new LC-MS machine will aid us in plant metabolite identification and quantification.
New paper
Volkaert L., Spasic D., Lammertyn J., Van de Poel B. (2026). Sensing plant stress: Biosensor technologies for abscisic acid monitoring. Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X Volume 30.
New paper
Scheerlinck Z., Macdonald J., Lavaert C., Cappelle J., Scheerlinck S, Diels J., Van de Poel B. and Reher T. (2026) Agrivoltaic layout types drive changes in raspberry summer microclimate. Frontiers in Horticulture 5:1716398.
LATEST PAPERS
LATEST RESEARCH
In the Interreg project GreenSense, we are validating our new plant movement sensor as a digital tool to assist growers in their greenhouse crop production. Together with AI-experts we are developing predictive models to enable early stress detection to optimize growth and production.
We use Marchantia polymorpha to study the origin and evolution of the plant hormone ethylene and it's precursor ACC. We are aiming to figure out how non-seed plants produce, sense and respond to ethylene and ACC.
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