Margot Smit

Margot Smit is an Independent Junior Group Leader at the Center of Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), University of Tübingen. Her research focuses on temporal regulation of plant cell fate transitions, particularly during embryogenesis and stomatal development. She leads a lab investigating how plants control the timing of differentiation and fate acquisition, supported by grants such as the DFG Emmy Noether. Her work combines genetics, genomics, and imaging to explore mechanisms like embryonic stomatal delay and differentiation blocks.

Education: MSc in Biotechnology from Wageningen University; PhD in Plant Vascular Development under Dolf Weijers (Wageningen University), funded by NWO-EPS; Postdoc at Stanford University with Dominique Bergmann, supported by an NWO Rubicon grant.

Research Interests:

• Temporal control of cell fate trajectories
• Embryonic differentiation inhibition
• Stomatal lineage progression regulation
• Environmental influences on developmental timing

Key Awards:

• DFG Emmy Noether Grant (2024)
• NWO Rubicon Grant (Postdoc)
• NWO-EPS PhD Grant

Lab Members: Includes PhD candidates Yadhusankar Sasidharan (embryonic differentiation mechanisms) and Vijayalakshmi Suryavanshi (stomatal patterning delay), Postdoc Pablo González-Suárez (temperature effects on development), and student assistants focused on imaging and mutant analysis.

Labs/Teams: Timing of Fate Transitions Lab at ZMBP, collaborating with institutions like the John Innes Centre and Stanford University.