Team | Desiccation Resilience

Our Team

Mariana Silva Artur

Assistant Professor

Asif Ahmed Sami

PhD candidate

Asif started his PhD in September, 2021 and he is working on the project 'Fine drying: seed preparation for the dry state' where he is investigating physiological and evolutionary aspects of desiccation tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds.

Sabine Kirchner

PhD candidate

Sabine started her PhD project in July, 2025 as a collaboration between the groups of Dr. Mariana S. Artur and Dr. Charlotte Gommers from PPH, WUR. She is investigating the role of drying on plastid dynamics and retrograde signalling during seed maturation. Her project is funded by the WUR Plant Sciences Group Starter grant.

Gustavo Roberto Fonseca de Oliveira

Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher

Gustavo is a visiting postdoctoral researcher from the School of Agricultural Sciences from the São Paulo State University in Brazil. He is investigating the role of chlorophyll degradation during seed maturation on seed and seedling vigor using Arabidopsis thaliana.

Mariana did her PhD at the Laboratory of Plant Physiology of WUR, where she studied the evolution, structure and function of LEA proteins from seeds and the resurrection plant Xerophyta schlechteri (a.k.a X. viscosa). She then did a postdoc at Utrecht University, and investigated development and drought responses of tomato root exodermis. In 2020, Mariana was appointed as a postdoc in the Seeds for the Future Initiative of the WSSC to bridge fundamental and applied seed research, teaching and mentoring. She then started to develop her research group on desiccation tolerance and seed maturation in December, 2023 at WUR.

Lars Bakermans

PhD candidate

Lars started his PhD in September, 2023 on the HEAT projects (NWO, OTP) where he is investigating how high temperature during seed maturation affects seed quality in Arabidopsis and tomato.

Maria João Ferreira

Postdoctoral Researcher

Maria started her postdoc in February 2025, and she is investigating the role of drying on mechanosignaling responses involved desiccation tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds. Her project is funded by the GreenTE Consortium.

Former group members:

Rafael Mateus Alves. Guest PhD, Esalq-USP, Brazil. Project: Effects of high temperature on chlorophyll degradation during seed maturation and on seed quality in Arabidopsis thaliana. Dec, 2024 - Dec, 2025.
Hylke Schakel. MSc Plant Sciences, WUR. Thesis: LEA_4 dynamics during seed maturation and imbibition of Arabidopsis thaliana. Oct, 2024 - Mar, 2025.
Marthe Lamain. MSc Plant Sciences, WUR. Thesis: The effect of different drying rates on chlorphyll degradation in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds. Oct, 2023 - Mar, 2024.
Anne de Wilde. BSc Biology, WUR. Thesis: Variation in the effects of desiccation during seed germination in different Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes. Sep, 2023 - Jan, 2024.
Wies Bos. BSc Biology, WUR. Thesis: The loss of desiccation tolerance in seeds of different Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes. Oct, 2022 - Feb, 2023.
Anan Hu, MSc. Bioinformatics, WUR. Thesis: Exploring the origin and evolution ofdesiccation tolerance in plants using comparative transcriptomics. Jul, 2022 - Jan, 2023 (Co-supervisor: Harm Nijveen, Bioinformatics, WUR).
Julia Damen. MSc Plant Biotechnology, WUR. Thesis: Transcriptional and translational regulation of LEA proteins during Arabidopsis thaliana seed development & germination. Mar-Sep, 2022.