معرفی
Michael Broberg Palmgren is a Professor in Plant Physiology at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on biological pumps in plants, particularly P-type ATPases, and their roles in growth, nutrient uptake, stress tolerance, and signal transduction. He leads the Section for Transport Biology and has been instrumental in translating knowledge from model plants like Arabidopsis thaliana to crop species including barley and quinoa.
His research interests include accelerating the domestication of orphan crops and wild plants for sustainable agriculture, perennial wheatgrass development, quinoa breeding for improved drought and salinity tolerance, and investigating why plants lack sodium pumps and whether they would benefit from having them. His work addresses urgent agricultural challenges including reducing fertilizer and water use while preserving natural ecosystems.
His recent publications (2024-2025) demonstrate continued research activity across plant membrane biology, crop domestication, and sustainable agriculture. These works explore chloroplast transport mechanisms, in vitro plant transformation techniques, gene family identification methods, calcium pump regulation, lipid flippase functions, and innovative approaches to quinoa improvement through saponin biosynthesis control.
- 2017 Scandinavian Plant Physiology Society (SPPS) Award
- 2016 Communicator of the Year, University of Copenhagen
- 2016 Knight of the Order of Dannebrog
- 2012 Best Teacher of the Year, Faculty of Life Sciences
- 2009 Elected member of the Academy for Technical Sciences, Denmark
- 2008 Elected member of Faculty of 1000
- 2005 Lifelong right to inhabit the Knud Sand Honorary Residence
- 2000 Elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Professor Palmgren has supervised over 22 master's students and 22 PhD students throughout his career, with more than half of these supervisions occurring since 2006. He has served as opponent at over 10 PhD examinations outside the University of Copenhagen. His research is supported by major grants including the Novo Nordisk Foundation project 'NovoCrops' (2020-2026), Carlsberg Foundation's 'RaisingQuinoa' (2019-2024), and Innovation Fund Denmark's 'LESSISMORE' (2017-2020).
He maintains an active presence in the scientific community through his leadership of the TRAP research group (http://www.traplabs.dk), editorial roles including Co-editor for The Plant Cell, and extensive public outreach with over 57 media appearances since 2014 discussing plant biology in Danish and international media.
