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Gutensohn, Michael

Assistant Professor of Horticulture

Michael Gutensohn, assistant professor of horticulture, was drawn toward plant biology during high school and was fortunate to have exceptional biology and chemistry teachers. At the same time, his parents allowed him to grow vegetables and fruits in a corner of the backyard further helping to develop his love of plants. He earned his diploma from the Julius-Maximilians University at Wuerzburg, Germany, in 1993, where he received a diverse education in biology, covering botany, zoology, genetics, cell biology and biochemistry. He later specialized in plant phsyiology. While pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Cologne in Germany, and two post-doctoral positions at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenber, Germany, and Purdue University, Gutensohn had the chance to work on multiple projects that taught him different techniques and approaches to plant biology. While at Purdue he was introduced to his current research topic - the scent of plants and its various biological functions.

Select Publications

  1. Henry L.K., Gutensohn M., Thomas S.T., Noel J.P. and Dudareva N. (2015) Orthologs of the archaeal isopentenyl phosphate kinase regulate terpenoid production in plants. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 10050-10055.
  2. Gutensohn M., Nguyen T.T.H., McMahon R.D., Kaplan I., Pichersky E. and Dudareva N. (2014) Metabolic engineering of monoterpene biosynthesis in tomato fruits via introduction of the non-canonical substrate neryl diphosphate. Metab. Eng. 24, 107-116.
  3. Gutensohn M. , Orlova I., Nguyen T.T.H., Davidovich-Rikanati R., Ferruzzi M., Sitrit Y., Lewinsohn E., Pichersky E. and Dudareva N. (2013) Cytosolic monoterpene biosynthesis is supported by plastid-generated geranyl diphosphate substrate in transgenic tomato fruits. Plant J. 75, 351-363.
  4. Heinig U., Gutensohn M. , Dudareva N. and Aharoni A. (2013) The challenges of cellular compartmentalization in plant metabolic engineering. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 4, 239-246.
  5. Gutensohn M., Klempien A., Kaminaga Y., Nagegowda D.A., Negre-Zakharov F., Huh J.-H., Luo H., Weizbauer R., Mengiste T., Tholl D. and Dudareva N. (2011) Role of aromatic aldehyde synthase in wounding/herbivory response and flower scent production in different Arabidopsis ecotypes. Plant J. 66, 591-602.
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