Portrait of Pierre Delaplace
New 2023 Lecturers Honoured
Lecturer in plant biotechnologies.
Could you briefly describe your background, your research topics and your conception of university teaching?
I trained as a bioengineer. I began my professional career as a statutory assistant in 2002 in Prof. Patrick du Jardin's plant biology unit. During my doctoral thesis, I developed research targeting the post-harvest aging process of the potato tuber, as a hydrated, non-chlorophyllous model organ. This research enabled me to build up an expertise in the physiology of post-harvest development that is still relevant today.
At the end of my assistantship, I was awarded an FNRS post-doctoral fellowship in 2008, focusing on the characterization of volatile organic compounds emitted in the wheat rhizosphere and the measurement of their influence on root physiology. This fellowship enabled me to initiate a new theme in our research team before my appointment as a permanent scientist in 2009.
I mainly develop research projects linked to root ecophysiology and stress physiologyin order to improve plants' resource use efficiency. This research focuses in particular on the development and characterization of new agrosystem management strategies, innovative fertilizers and biostimulants containing either plant growth-promoting bacteria, or products of natural origin such as protein hydrolysates, humic and fulvic acids, algae extracts and oligosaccharides. For example, as part of the BiodivERsA BIOFAIR project, we are currently studying the impact of innovative production systems on the resilience of the wheat agrosystem under future climate constraints. This research, which we are coordinating on a European scale, focuses more specifically on the biodiversity of cultivated soils (micro-, meso-fauna, microbiology) and the functions that this biodiversity assumes within the agrosystem.
My teaching activities are naturally consistent with my research activities. I am active in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. I teach Systematic Botany and Applied Physiology, and am co-teacher of the Multidisciplinary Experimental Project course, which is essentially based on the " learning by doing" principle. My students are at the heart of these courses, in which they actively participate through experimental approaches, semi-inversive classes and field visits. The aim here is to break away from the predominantly transmissive dynamic that used to exist in these courses, and make the students actors in their training, while anchoring it in real-life situations. In this way, they will be able to develop the qualities and skills we expect of a bioengineer graduating from Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (ULiège).
