Why plant research?
Plants are the basis for life on earth. Plants, unlike animals and fungi, are able to harness the sun's energy through the process of photosynthesis, are the primary producers of biomass and are the ultimate source of all our food. Maintaining a sustainable food supply with sufficient nutritional value for an ever increasing world population will be a major challenge of the 21st century. Plant research could also lead to the development of plant-based renewable energy sources, the production of biomolecules such as vaccines and antibodies in plants, and to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to human disease. Basic curiosity-driven research such as that undertaken at the Gregor Mendel Institute in combination with technology transfer lies at the base of all these applications.

Plants in the history of basic research
Plants have played a pioneering role throughout the history of biological research. Plant breeding experiments conducted by the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) unravelled the basic mechanisms of inheritance. In the 1940s, cytogenetic work with maize by Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) resulted in the discovery of ‘mobile genetic elements’, now known as transposons for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983. More recently, molecular plant biology has played a crucial role in the study of epigenetic phenomena and led to the discovery of the epigenetic mechanisms transgene-mediated gene silencing and RNA interference (RNAi). The advent of RNAi has had far-reaching implications including opening new therapeutic avenues for the treatment of human disease.