During her PhD studies, Camilla Gottlieb Andersen researched how sugar transport proteins in plants facilitate long distance transport of photosynthetically derived sugars during homeostasis and infection. She acquired structural information of sugar transporters from plants and a fungal maize pathogen using X-ray crystallography and cryogenic electron microscopy. This structural data was complemented by transport assays conducted in vivo and in vitro to characterize the sugar transporters and to describe how plant and fungal sugar transporters recognize and discriminate between different sugars.

Her findings provide a structural framework for a better understanding of how long-distance sugar transport is mediated in plants and how biotrophic fungal pathogens compete with their hosts for sugar at the molecular level. 

The PhD study was completed at Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Wednesday, 17 June 2026 at 13.00
Place: Building 1790, room 330, City Auditorium, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Universitetsbyen 41, 8000 Aarhus C
Title of PhD thesis: In sickness and in health: Structural mechanisms of sugar transporters in plant homeostasis and fungal infection
Contact information: Camilla Gottlieb Andersen, e-mail: camillaga@mbg.au.dk, tel.: +45 60187242.
Members of the assessment committee:
Associate Professor Azadeh Shahsavar, Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, Copenhagen University, Denmark
Professor Ruth Stadler, Department of Biology, Friedrich-Alexander University, Germany
Associate Professor Christian Kroun Damgaard (chair), Department of Molecular biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark
Main supervisor: Professor Bjørn Panyella Pedersen, Department of Molecular biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Natural Sciences/GSNS, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C