Raphaël Mercier from the INRA in Versailles has accepted the offer to develop a new Departement in the MPIPZ which will focus on Chromosome Biology.

Rapahël has characterized and studiend the intereactions of the key components of the machineries involved in the mechanistic basis of recombination and meiosis in seed plants. In their research, him and his team identified the mechanisms that limit meiotic recombination, which opens new possibilities of crop improvement by ingeneering the allelic composition of chromosomes. Also, they made important steps in engineering apomixis: the sex independent and seed-based clonal propagation of plants.

The developement of the new department will start this autumn and Raphaël will tranfer his activities to Cologne next year.