Detlef Weigel

I started out as a developmental biologist, but over the past two decades years, my lab has come to focus more and more on questions of evolution. We investigate these both from a genomic perspective and starting from phenotypes, primarily, but not exclusively in Arabidopsis thaliana. The most recent addition is a strong investment in plant-microbe interactions, including natural microbiomes; see our Pathopdopsis project! I am an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the German National Academy of Sciences and EMBO. I have served or am serving on many advisory and editorial boards and have co-founded three biotech start-ups. Download a recent CV here.

Research lines

  • Molecular mechanisms behind evolution of adaptive traits
  • Plant-microbe interactions
  • Molecular mechanisms of plant immunity

Short vita

  • 2002 to present

    Director / Max Planck Institute for Biology

  • 1993 to 2002

    Assistant and Associate Professor / Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA

  • 1989 - 1993

    Postdoc / California Institute of Technology, USA

Selected publications

Arabidopsis thaliana and Pseudomonas Pathogens Exhibit Stable Associations over Evolutionary Timescales

Karasov, T. L., Almario, J., Friedemann, C., Ding, W., Giolai, M., Heavens, D., Kersten, S., Lundberg, D., Neumann, M., Regalado, J., Neher, R. A., Kemen, E., Weigel D.
Cell Host Microbe (2018), 24(1) 168-179.

1,135 Genomes Reveal the Global Pattern of Polymorphism in Arabidopsis thaliana

1001 Genomes Consortium
Cell (2016), 166(2) 481-491.

Species-wide Genetic Incompatibility Analysis Identifies Immune Genes as Hot Spots of Deleterious Epistasis

Chae E., Bomblies K., Kim S. T., Karelina D., Zaidem M., Ossowski S., Martin-Pizarro C., Laitinen R. A., Rowan B. A., Tenenboim H., Lechner S., Demar M., Habring-Müller A., Lanz C., Rätsch G. and Weigel D.
Cell (2014), 159(6) 1341-51.

Natural allelic variation underlying a major fitness trade-off in Arabidopsis thaliana

Todesco M., Balasubramanian S., Hu T. T., Traw M. B., Horton M., Epple P., Kuhns C., Sureshkumar S., Schwartz C., Lanz C., Laitinen R. A., Huang Y., Chory J., Lipka V., Borevitz J. O., Dangl J. L., Bergelson J., Nordborg M. and Weigel D.
Nature (2010), 465(7298) 632-6.

Integration of spatial and temporal information during floral induction in Arabidopsis

Wigge P. A., Kim M. C., Jaeger K. E., Busch W., Schmid M., Lohmann J. U. and Weigel D.
Science (2005), 309(5737) 1056-9.

Control of leaf morphogenesis by microRNAs

Palatnik J. F., Allen E., Wu X., Schommer C., Schwab R., Carrington J. C. and Weigel D.
Nature (2003), 425(6955) 257-63.

A molecular link between stem cell regulation and floral patterning in Arabidopsis

Lohmann J. U., Hong R. L., Hobe M., Busch M. A., Parcy F., Simon R. and Weigel D.
Cell (2001), 105(6) 793-803.

A developmental switch sufficient for flower initiation in diverse plants

Weigel D. and Nilsson O.
Nature (1995), 377(6549) 495-500.

The homeotic gene fork head encodes a nuclear protein and is expressed in the terminal regions of the Drosophila embryo

Weigel D., Jürgens G., Küttner F., Seifert E. and Jäckle H.
Cell (1989), 57(4) 645-58.

Lorem Ipsum