Four researchers awarded for doctoral dissertations of outstanding merit

The University of Helsinki doctoral dissertation awards for 2019 were bestowed to Erika Palmerio, Iris Sevilem, Aleksia Vaattovaara and Santeri Vanhanen.

The University annually acknowledges doctoral dissertations of outstanding merit. In addition to scientific merit, the award grounds take into account the impact of the work in the relevant scientific field, as well as its social impact.

The chosen dissertations investigated coronal mass ejections, procambium development in the Arabidopsis root, evolution of the DUF26-containing proteins and the development of cultivation and plant gathering in Finland.

The awards for 2019, each worth €4,000, will be conferred at a celebration organised at the University of Helsinki in early autumn.

Novel information on space weather

Erika Palmerio’s dissertation Magnetic Structure and Geoeffectiveness of Coronal Mass Ejections focuses on the topic of space weather, i.e. the series of physical processes that are driven by solar activity and that can cause disturbances in Earth’s environment. The importance of space weather forecasting resides in the fact that solar phenomena can harm the performance and reliability of space- and ground-based technological systems, such as satellites in orbit, high-voltage power and natural gas pipeline networks, and systems utilising navigation and positioning applications.

is available in the University of Helsinki’s E-thesis service.

What activates radial growth?

’s dissertation focuses on procambium development in the Arabidopsis root. The stem cells of the procambium give rise to vascular tissues during early development of plants. The vascular system functions as a transportation route that also provides support and produces the majority of radial growth.

Sevilem’s work describes novel regulators of procambium development and reveals a complex regulatory network that activates radial growth. These findings significantly increase our understanding of how vascular tissues are formed and can potentially be used to increase yields in forestry and agriculture.

The electronic version of the dissertation titled is available in the University of Helsinki’s E-thesis service.

Studying the evolution of DUF26-containing proteins

In ’s dissertation Evolution of the DUF26-containing proteins in plants, the evolution of the DUF26-containing proteins was studied. These proteins are coded by the large gene family in plants and have functions related to plant development and stress responses. This work provides information of the evolutionary history and structure of DUF26 domain and phylogenetic relationships of DUF26-containing proteins. In the future, this phylogenetic information can be applied to research aiming to transfer functional information from the model species to other species like crops.

During this work, also the challenges related to the quality of non-verified annotations of gene models were highlighted to increase the awareness of this issue in the research community.

is available in the University of Helsinki’s E-thesis service.

Shedding light on ancient gathered plants

In his dissertation, Santeri Vanhanen studied the development of cultivation and plant gathering in Finland during prehistoric era in Finland. The earliest cereal grains in Finland were found on Åland Islands. These grains of barley and wheat were 5,000-year-old accord to radiocarbon dating. Plant cultivation arrived in mainland Finland later, in the beginning of the Bronze Age, which was around 3,500 years ago.

New knowledge on the poorly known ancient gathered plants showed that hunter-gatherers in Finland utilized several wild plants. The method of the study was an archaeobotanical analysis, which studies ancient plant remains found at archaeological sites. Plant remains are identified with a microscope by comparing these with modern plants.

The electronic version of the dissertation is available in the University of Helsinki’s E-thesis service.