Andreas Graner

Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) Germany Corrensstr, 3, D-­06466 Seeland OT Gatersleben, Germany

Andreas Graner has a PhD in Plant Genetics from the Technical University of Münich, Germany. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and as a Staff Scientist at the University of Münich and the Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants before pursuing a career as Senior Scientist (1997) and Head of the Federal ex situ Genebank at IPK Gatersleben, Germany (1999), and Professor for Plant Genetic Resources at the University of Halle, Germany (1999). He has been the Managing Director of IPK since 2007. From 2006 to 2008 he chaired the International Barley Sequencing consortium, and was a Scientific Advisory Board Member for Biodiversity and Genetic Resources for the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture.

As a molecular geneticist Andreas has been involved in the development of genomics resources and deployment of molecular tools for crop plant genetics and breeding for over 30 years. Being responsible for the Federal ex situ Genebank of Germany, which represents the largest collection within EU 28, he has been deeply involved in collection management improvement, the successful advancement of cereals genomics, and more recently in the application of phenomics to cereals. Furthermore, he is highly active in the establishment of Biodiversity Informatics at the IPK, which involves the convergence of classical genebank documentation with Bioinformatics, and entails the development of data analysis and visualization software tools for the development, management and curation of PGR related databases (including the EURISCO search catalogue for PGR).

Andreas is convinced that promotion of the international effort launched by DivSeek Intl will create and strengthen the research community, and help to build an infrastructure for systematically capturing and storing genomics and phenomics data to be converted into high value information, which provides informed access to PGR for research and breeding.

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