dr. AM (Aranka) van der Burgh

Aranka M. van der Burgh went to Hogeschool Van Hall-Larenstein in Velp, to study Plant Biotechnology. She conducted her BSc thesis with Dr. Jan Schaart at the Department of Plant Breeding (Wageningen University & Research), working on the marker-free transformation of strawberry. After completing her BSc, she joined the group of Dr. Henk Schouten at the Department of Plant Breeding as a technician for three years. She worked on the development of cisgenic apples, with the aim to improve fungal resistance and to obtain red fruit flesh.
In 2011, she started the MSc Plant Biotechnology at Wageningen University. During her MSc thesis at the Department of Virology she investigated the possible interaction between a specific viral protein and plant proteins involved in defence against viruses. During the final four months of her MSc, she went to Cologne, Germany, for an internship at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding (MPIPZ). Here, in the Plant Chemetics Group of Dr. Renier van der Hoorn, which moved to Oxford, UK, in 2014, she studied the plant proteasome and its inhibition during
bacterial infection.
In 2014, she started her PhD in the Solanaceae (SOL) group (Department of Phytopathology, Wageningen University & Research) under the supervision of Dr. Matthieu Joosten. The results of the conducted research are described in her PhD thesis and several publications.

After a year at ClearDetections, where she worked on the development of detection assays for various plant pathogens, Aranka moved back to Plant Breeding, to work as PostDoctoral reseacher. Here she worked in the field of New Plant Breeding Techniques, and how to apply these techniques in important crops species.

In 2023, she made the shift from research to education, at the Online Learning Environment team of the Teaching and Learning Centre (OLE, TLC, at WUR). Here she is involved in improving laboratory practical courses.