Majken Pagter has won a Marie Curie Fellowship worth €162 000. This will enable her to extend for a further two years her research visit at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany.

The awarding of the Marie Curie Fellowship by the EU Commission follows shortly after Majken Pagter was awarded a Carlsberg Fund Travel Grant,that enabled her to go to the Max Planck Institute on 1 March.

Expanded international network
The latest grant from Marie Curie means that Majken Pagter can further improve her skills in omics technology and investigate the importance that the ability of plants to remember low temperatures has on their potential to survive later frost episodes.

- I am really happy to get the Marie Curie Fellowship, which I feel is an acknowledgement of my research and a pat on the shoulder. At the same time, it looks to the future, giving me the opportunity to increase my knowledge and skills, and expand my international network, explained Majken Pagter.

She has the clear expectation that her time at the Max Planck Institute will increase her insight into the science of the overwintering of plants, a small research field in Denmark.

- I expect that by the end of the Marie Curie Fellowship, I will be more skilled methodologically but will also have gained a broader and more holistic approach to my research, because my education in classic plant physiology with focus on plant production will be supplemented with state-of-the-art molecular techniques. In the medium term, I also hope that it will improve my CV and so help when I apply for grants in the future, said Majken Pagter.

With the awarding of the Marie Curie Fellowship, Majken Pagter can look forward to spending nearly three years in Germany, having begun her visit on 1 March.

Further information:

Postdoc Majken Pagter, on leave from the Department of Food Sciences

Attached to the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology until the end of February, 2016.

E-mail: pagter@mpimp-golm.mpg.de