Prof. Imre Vass, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged, Hungary

Host: Yagut Allahverdiyeva (allahve@utu.fi)

Dr. Imre Vass is a director of the Institute of Plant Biology in Szeged, Hungary. He is an internationally recognised and highly-cited photosynthesis researcher. His research group studies the mechanisms by which abiotic stress factors and inducers of reactive oxygen species damage plants and cyanobacteria. His team also study the defense and acclimation responses which are induced by these stimuli. He has played a leading role in developing methods for detection of various reactive oxygen species in plant systems during the last 20 years. He is working on modeling the whole network of the photosynthetic and respiratory electron transport. The team developed a complex plant phenotyping platform which is a part of an EU-wide plant phenotyping infrastructure network (EPPN) and allows medium-high throughput characterization of plant growth and physiological status.
Selected publications

Symbiodinium sp. cells produce light-induced intra- and extracellular singlet oxygen, which mediates photodamage of the photosynthetic apparatus and has the potential to interact with the animal host in coral symbiosis.
Rehman AU, Szabó M, Deák Z, Sass L, Larkum A, Ralph P, Vass I.

Characterization of singlet oxygen production and its involvement in photodamage of Photosystem II in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC 6803 by histidine-mediated chemical trapping.
Rehman AU, Cser K, Sass L, Vass I.

Molecular mechanisms of photodamage in the Photosystem II complex.
Vass I.