Wladimir Tameling, Researcher, Wageningen University

Wladimir Tameling received his PhD (2005) in Molecular Plant Pathology at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He performed his PhD studies in the Laboratory of Plant Pathology headed by Prof. Ben Cornelissen. Between 2004 and 2006, he was a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Prof. David Baulcombe at the Sainsbury Laboratory, UK. In 2006 he became a senior post-doctoral researcher in the Laboratory of Phytopathology, headed by Prof Pierre de Wit, of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. There he is working in the Solanaceae (SOL) group of Dr. Matthieu Joosten (http://www.php.wur.nl/UK/Research/SOL-group/).
His research interest is to unravel the molecular mechanism of the plant’s innate immune system. He focuses on the functional characterization of the intracellularly localized immune receptors of the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) family. His biochemical experiments on purified NB-LRRs has formed the basis of the nucleotide-dependent molecular switch model, which explains how these receptors activate the immune response after recognition of non-self components. Later studies focused on the identification of NB-LRR-interacting proteins. One of these was found to be required for both the stability and the subcellular distribution of the immune receptor, both of which are essential for its functioning in plant immunity.