Farewell to….

Thorsten Langner. He talks in depth about his time at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and the next step in his career in plant science.

As part of our farewell series, we spoke with Research Group Leader Thorsten Langner about his experience at the institute and his recent move to Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), where he now heads the Department of Phytopathology and Plant Protection.

How long have you been with the Max Planck Institute for Biology and what first brought you here?

I started my group here in summer 2023 and our research really kicked-off in 2024 when the first members - postdoc Wagner Fagundes and PhD student Yu-Seng Huang - joined my group.

My decision to join the institute began with a very pragmatic choice I had to make while I was a postdoc with Sophien Kamoun at the Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) in Norwich, UK. I had just received an ERC Starting Grant. With the UK leaving the EU Horizon programme, I had to decide whether to stay and switch to a UKRI grant - losing international mobility - or move elsewhere in Europe. I chose the latter and began exploring opportunities in Germany.

Tübingen stood out immediately. The strong focus on plant science, plant–microbe interactions, and evolutionary biology aligned perfectly with my research. The Max Planck Institute provided an outstanding, multidisciplinary environment that enabled us to set up the group very smoothly.
In particular, I would like to thank Detlef (Weigel) who recognised the potential of our research and welcomed us into his department. I still remember receiving his offer while travelling to Cologne after my visit to Tübingen. I was very surprised that I received an offer so quickly. Detlef provided fantastic support and enabled me to integrate my group into his department for which I will be forever grateful!

What are you most proud of accomplishing during your time here?

I’m very proud of my team! We built a truly international and collaborative group of fantastic scientists and team players, bringing together nine people from seven nationalities at our peak. It makes me very happy to see these young scientists with very different cultural background not only get along, but become friends and synergize perfectly as a team.

Since our start, we have made important progress on several projects that address questions ranging from fundamental genome evolution to the molecular evolution of virulence effectors and the bioengineering of plant immune receptors. We have also begun exploring experimental evolution of the blast fungus to gain new insights into genome dynamics, especially mini-chromosome dynamics, and adaptation to stress conditions.
As part of this work, we established a population of around 1,600 samples, and we are already observing interesting phenotypic changes. I’m very excited about this project and especially pleased for my stellar postdoc Dr. Lucia Gomez Gil, who recently secured a Marie-Curie fellowship to follow up on this exciting project.

How would you describe the research culture or atmosphere here and is there someone or something that really supported or inspired your work?

I think a defining feature of the institute is how dynamic you can be with your research. When you have an interesting idea for an experiment or project, the institute‘s culture allows you to act fast and bring your ideas to fruition. This dynamic and curiosity driven approach to research is very motivating and inspiring and allows researchers from PhD students, to postdocs, to group leaders to develop their ideas into tangible projects.

Personally, I would like to thank many people who supported us along the way. Most of all, Detlef Weigel who provided space in his department and excellent conditions to start our group. Being part of the Department of Molecular Biology has been highly rewarding and enabled valuable exchange and collaboration.
I would also like to thank Rebecca Schwab who supported us at many stages and was a great facilitator. She always offered practical help, a friendly ear, valuable advice about navigating the institute, and even helped us organise our field sampling efforts.
In addition, I am grateful to the excellent technical personnel in Department 6 and to lab manager Tina who helped and supported us countless times. And finally, a big shout-out to all the amazing scientists and support staff at the institute for providing a welcoming and inspiring research environment.

What’s next for you — where are you heading, and what will you be working on?

My group is moving to the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) where I will lead the Department of Phytopathology and Plant Protection at the Institute of Agriculture and Nutritional Sciences.
Our research will continue at the interface of fundamental and applied science, focusing on three main themes: genome evolution and mini-chromosome dynamics, the molecular evolution of virulence effectors, and plant immunity.
There is great potential both for our group and plant science more broadly at MLU and also the wider region. Recently established research consortia like the CRC SNP2Prot which investigates phenotypic consequences of genomic variation on structural and functional proteoform diversity, and new support infrastructure such as protein production and plant transformation promise exciting interfaculty synergies.
The region also offers strong opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations with leading institutes, including the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry (IPB) Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI), and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDIV).

Working in world-leading research institutes - first as a postdoc at TSL and then as a young group leader at the Max Planck Institute - has greatly shaped how I approach science. It has encouraged me to think broadly and integrate diverse disciplines and methodologies, from evolutionary biology and genetics to population-scale genomics and even applied aspects such as the integration of bioengineering and gene editing to understand how plant pathogens cause disease and develop ways to secure sustainable food production. I hope that my expertise and the fantastic work of my lab members will contribute to the exciting developments in plant sciences at MLU.

Is there a highlight or memorable moment you’d like to share?

One of the highlights for me was building my group and a fantastic team from scratch. I was amazed by the quality of applicants our group attracted. From interns to MSc and PhD students to postdocs, we found excellent researchers to join our team. It is very rewarding to see such talent join and work so well together.
Another highlight for me was our sampling trips to northern Italy, one of the major rice-producing regions and habitat of our model organism, the blast fungus Magnaporthe (syn. Pyricularia) oryzae, in Europe. Besides their value for our research, these excursions are a great way to connect with our team members outside of the lab and to experience our research model system and its devastating impact to agriculture in real-life conditions. Besides, it is a very hands-on way to learn about the ecology of the fungus and the diversity of host plant populations.

What’s a fun or unexpected fact about your research area?

A fun fact is that it all started with a vague email from Sophien Kamoun that said, “Do we have a CHEF gel in Norwich?”
At the time, I was working on a project in which we investigated the molecular evolutionary mechanisms that contribute to effector diversification in the blast fungus. The email, however, was in the context of genome variation, as we had attended a presentation from a colleague who had just released the first sequenced mini-chromosome of a wheat-infecting isolate of the blast fungus. This sparked my interest as we had just sequenced the genomes of a few isolates for other projects and I saw an opportunity to look more into large-scale structural genomic variation which hadn’t been done extensively in the blast fungus. So, I set out to look for old CHEF gel electrophoresis instruments…and the rest is history: I started a new project on mini-chromosomes which quickly developed into a full research program.

The message I would share with younger researchers is to stay open to new ideas and opportunities. Don’t become too comfortable with familiar approaches—step out of your comfort zone and explore new methods.
It was a very rewarding move to expand my research from pure wet-lab biology to incorporate bioinformatics, even though it was completely new to me and quite a steep learning curve. And the second important message is: Recognize and take opportunities when they arise! You never know where they lead you.