Curriculum vitae
Name: Rients Engelhard NIKS
Department of Plant Breeding
PO Box 386
6700 AJ Wageningen
The Netherlands
tel +31 317 482508
fax +31 317 483457
e-mail:
Date/place of birth: 22 november 1953, Grijpskerk, The Netherlands
Nationality: Dutch
Sex: Male
Marital status: Married
Education:
1966 – 1972 Gymnasium-B at Harderwijk
1972 – 1978 Study Plant Breeding at the Wageningen Agricultural University (MSc-degree obtained with highest distinction)
major: Plant Breeding
minors: Cytogenetics
Phytopathology
Simulation models
1978 – 1981 PhD thesis work at the Laboratory of Plant Breeding, Wageningen Agricultural University:
Thesis: “Studies on the histology of partial resistance in barley to leaf rust, Puccinia hordei”
1981 – 1983 Worked as post doc fellow in the durum wheat improvement programme of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria
1984 – present Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Plant Breeding, Wageningen Agricultural University.
Teaching: Responsible since 1986 for teaching courses on “Breeding for resistance to biotic stress factors”.
Other tasks are to co-ordinate and teach in several practicals and courses on various subjects related to plant breeding in English, Dutch or Spanish.
Organized and taught in many Plant Breeding courses in South America, Kenya, China and Thailand.
Invited lecturer in PhD course in Pietermaritzburg, South-Africa (2010).
Visiting professor at Tehran University, Iran (since 2010).
Research: The research focuses on durable, non-hypersensitive types of resistance of plants to specialised pathogen species. As model system serves barley (Hordeum vulgare) and barley leaf rust (Puccinia hordei). The resistances that are focused on are “partial resistance” and “non-host resistance”.
Recently, the research advanced towards positional cloning of genes that are responsible for the two kinds of resistance. See for a link to my publication list (over 80 publications in ISI journals) http://www.wewur.wur.nl/popups/vcard.aspx?id=NIKS001&lang=nl
and for more personal details my LinkedIn profile (recently made):
http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro
Techniques and approaches:
The research of the group strongly relies on the following techniques and assets:
- Molecular marker technology (mostly AFLP, but also other types of markers)
- Map construction, based on JoinMap software (the author of that software, ProfStam, is a recently retired staff member of the Laboratory).
- QTL mapping, based on MapQTL
- A large collection of Puccinia rust isolates and species
- Two pooled BAC libraries of strategic barley lines
- Disease tests to assess levels of resistance, mostly in a quantitative way. This evaluation includes microscopy in order to characterise the mechanism of plant defence.
Languages: Dutch (native speaker); English (fluent), Spanish (near-fluent), French, German, Arabic (all for simple conversations)
PhD studied that were supervised (as first responsible)
Name (year) Subject
D. Rubiales Olmedo (1991) Base genetica de la Resistencia del Tritordeo (´ Tritordeum) a enfermedades de trigo (Triticum aestivum y T. turgidum) y cebada (Hordeum vulgare)" University of Córdoba, Spain.
C.A. Swertz (1994) Morphology of germlings of urediniospores and its value for the identification of grass rust fungi
C.C. Anker (2001) Prehaustorial and posthaustorial resistance to wheat leaf rust in diploid wheat
M.C. Vaz Patto (2001) The genetics and mechanism of avoidance of rust infection in Hordeum chilense
F. Martínez Moreno (2002) Mecanismos de resistencia a roya de la hoja en trigo y cebada. University of Córdoba, Spain.
H. Jafary (2006) The genetic basis of non-host resistance of barley to specialised fungal pathogens, sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Research, Science & Technology, Iran.
Th. Marcel (2007) Genetic architecture of basal resistance of barley to Puccinia hordei
R. Aghnoum (2009) Basal resistance of barley to adapted and non-adapted forms of Blumeria graminis
Several other PhD students were co-supervised.
Present PhD projects:
(since September 2009) Freddy Yeo Kuok San: “Cloning and confirmation of barley sequences that determine basal resistance of barley to specialized Puccinia rust fungi” sponsored by the Malaysian Government.
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