Joop EM Vermeer is a Full Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He received his M.Sc. in plant breeding and crop protection at Wageningen University, and a PhD form the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
During Dr. Vermeer’s training he developed a keen interest in the cell biology underlying plant development. He gained strong expertise in using different microscopy to resolve long standing biological questions. As a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Niko Geldner, University of Lausanne, CH, he studied the role of spatial accommodation during lateral root formation in Arabidopsis thaliana. He then moved to the University of Zurich, CH, where he started his own lab to elucidate the genetic network underlying spatial accommodating responses funded by a SNSF Professorial Fellowship.
In August 2019 he moved to the University of Neuchâtel, CH, to head the Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology. His research program is still focused on spatial accommodating responses during organ growth and to which extend these mechanisms are conserved between different plant species.