Alexander H.J. Wittenberg Email & Phone Number

Netherlands

Responsible for innovations in the area of long-read sequencing and applications.

Wageningen

Responsible for sales for KeyGene's next-generation sequencing products and services such as;- CropPedia- Sequence- Based Genotyping (SBG)- Re-sequencing and fast variant detection- Illumina applications (RNA-Seq, WGS, etc.) - PacBio applications (full-length transcriptome, WGS, amplicon etc.)

Wageningen

Coordination of Next Generation Sequencing facilities. Ensuring high effectiveness of research activities and support in the fields of data production and data analysis. Responsible for implementation of new techniques and equipment. Working with field and vegetable crops but also as service provider in a wide range of other species. In addition closely involved in technology scouting and development in the field of NGS. Large experience with Illumina, PacBio and Oxford Nanopore Technologies platforms.

Wageningen, The Netherlands

Project leader Technology and Trait Mechanisms. I lead a team that is responsible for delivering a wide-range of services to internal and external clients. These services are focused around the discovery, validation or high-throughput genotyping of molecular markers and other sequence-based applications using second and third generation sequencing platforms. Experience with Roche 454 GS FLX+ , Illumina HiSeq2000/2500 and MiSeq and PacBio RSII sequencing platforms. These service are contributing to the accelerated molecular breeding platform of KeyGene.

During this period I was working within the New-generation Sequence Applications program and was responsible for innitiating targeted re-sequencing technologies in crops with large, complex genomes. In addition, I was involved in a number of other R&D projects using next generation sequencing platforms.

Learning how to process large datasets from next generation sequencing machines (454Titanium & GAII). The traineeship focused on the assembly of complex plant genomes and in silico simulations of Whole Genome Profiling (i.e. an innovative way to generate high quality physical maps).• General- Unix tools- Perl program language- Virtual machines- Next-generation sequence formats and conversions (454 and GA data)- Data structure, storage, databases and data visualization (GBrowse and contig viewers)• Specific- BAC assembly- WGS assemblies- Amplicon analysis- SNP/INDEL mining in 454 data- BLAST database (Decipher Time Logic)- A number of in-silico simulations- Process WGP data (GA) and use FPC to generate high-density physical maps

As a researcher I was working in the High-Throughput Genotyping program. This aim of this program was to develop innovative, cost-efficient genotyping technologies for all plant breeding applications. In this program I was mainly involved in the development and implementation of the Single Feature Polymorphism (SFP) technology. SFP is a microarray-based marker technology which can be used for high throughput genotyping and high density mapping. We developed several custom made arrays for a number of crops (http://www.intl-pag.org/16/abstracts/PAG16_P03a_106.html). In subsequent projects Keygene participated in the development and exploitation of a Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and Pepper (Capsicum spp.) 6.6 million feature Affymetrix GeneChip for massively parallel genotyping and gene expression analysis; http://chiplett.ucdavis.edu/ and https://pepchip.genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/. Besides the SFP projects I was involved in initiating a number of other innovative technologies for high-throughput SNP discovery, validation and genotyping.

Septoria tritici blotch (STB) disease of wheat caused by the fungus Mycosphaerella graminicola is the most important foliar disease of wheat worldwide. Control of such diseases is entirely reliant on fungicide application as poor genetic resistance among the majority of cultivars planted exists. However, this strategy has been undermined due to the rapid emergence of strobilurin tolerant STB isolates. In light of such reduced fungicide efficacy, there is a clear requirement for the development and adoption of alternative control strategies.During my PhD we developed two high-density genetic maps using the Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) and innitiated the whole-genome sequencing of one of the isolates (IPO323) with the help of The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE-JGI): http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Mycgr3/Mycgr3.home.htmlThe genetic maps and the alignment of the sequenced markers to the finished genome revealed that chromosome numbers among progeny isolates varied widely, with some progeny missing up to three chromosomes, while other strains were disomic for one or more chromosomes. The research indicated that meiosis drives this extraordinary genome plasticity. High genome plasticity could be among the strategies enabling this versatile pathogen to quickly overcome adverse biotic and abiotic conditions in wheat fields. Details of this research are described in a paper published in PLoS ONE; http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005863

Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Contributed to the development and application of the Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT); a molecular marker technology that was developed to overcome some of the limitations of other molecular marker technologies.My stay at DArT was supported by a grant I received from the Netherlands Genomics Innitiative (NGI).

Australian Capital Territory, Australia

In 2004 I was granted a travel grant by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) for the development and implementation of the Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT). DArT Pty Ltd was a spin out from the Centre for the Application of Molecular Biology to International Agriculture (CAMBIA). In addition, the visit should strengthen the collaboration between Plant Research International and DArT P/L. The research focused on validation of the new marker technology using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and resulted in a paper in Molecular Genetics and Genomics (2005).

Timemanagement

Agile Account Management

Activities and Societies: Agile Scrum sprints Working in multidisciplinary teams, Create customer value, account planning, effective.

Sales Training Consultative Selling

Two-day course on how to apply consultative selling

Consultative Selling, Business Development

Different Practical masterclass consultative selling / cocreating / effective mental thinking: http://www.beerschot-simons.nl/

Ip

One week in-company course consisting out of lectures and practical experiences/examples. Basic aspects in respect to patents, IP, FTO.

Certificate, Introduction To Next Generation Sequencing; Technologies And Data Analysis

This one week course consisted out of lectures and practicals

Certificate, Introduction To Project Management

Certificate, De Programmeertaal Perl

A one week course in which the programming language Perl was teached.

Fellowship, The One Year Fellowship Was An Extension Of My Phd Work

My one year stay at DArT, Australia was supported by this fellowship grant I received from the Netherlands Genomics Innitiative (NGI).

Phd, Genome Plasticity

Activities and Societies: The Graduate School 'Experimental Plant Sciences' (EPS) is a collaborative research and teaching institution.

Msc, Plant Breeding And Crop Protection

Bsc, Plant Biotechnology

Education record

Agile scrum training Working in multidisciplinary teams, effective project execution

Agile Scrum Training Working In Multidisciplinary Teams, Effective Project Execution

Agile scrum training Working in multidisciplinary teams, effective project execution

Agile Scrum Training Working In Multidisciplinary Teams, Effective Project Execution

Agile Scrum Training Working In Multidisciplinary Teams, Effective Project Execution