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ove nilsson

"I'll never forget when I first saw the small poplars flowering in my lab. What takes decades in nature we'd managed in a few weeks. I remember my first thought was 'This just can't be true!'."

Subject tags for this article: Carl Linnaeus, bloom, molecular biology, plants, poplar, trees, forestry, flowering,

Born 1964
Doctorate in forest cell- and molecular biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), 1995
Professor of Plant Reproduction Biology at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, SLU.

Interview by Eva Krutmeijer

Being a professor of plant reproduction biology in 2007 means tackling the unsolved puzzles of plants' sexual systems in a way Linnaeus himself could never have dreamt of. As Ove Nilsson well knows. He came first in the hunt to find the messenger molecule that controls plants' flowering. The international scientific community realised the enormous importance of this breakthrough when the journal Science pronounced it one of the most important discoveries of 2005. A year later he found the FT genein the poplar tree which controls both flowering in spring and bud-set in autumn. We now understand the whole chain of events from seed to flower - imagine if Linnaeus had been there!

Why did you start doing research in the first place?

"In my case there wasn't any one person or situation that influenced me. I've always been interested in nature; I was a field biologist and a birdwatcher when I was young. Research was something I got into gradually."

Which is more important, curiosity or usefulness?

"They go together, specially as my type of pure research lies very close to applications that can be of enormous importance to society. But the force that drives my research is curiosity, the urge to understand."

Many people think that Sweden has to improve at commercialising her research discoveries. What do you think?

"It's probably true that we're good at research but not so good at linking up to commercial applications. It's often a difficult step; researchers and private enterprise often speak very different languages. It's no problem here though. At the Umeå Plant Science Centre we're good at bridging the gap between idea and product. This is very much because the people who develop our basic research are extremely clued-up. We've tried to reduce the gap."

Is there anything in particular you dream of being able to understand?

"Ever since the mid-90s I've wanted to understand what makes trees flower. There were all kinds of theories but nobody actually knew what really happens."

But surely you've found out, with your great discovery in 2005?

"Yes, okay, I've got considerably nearer the answer. But there's still a lot to do. An answer often just gives rise to a whole lot more questions..."

What's the greatest moment in your research career so far?
"I'll never forget when I first saw the small poplars flowering in my lab. What takes decades in nature we'd managed in a few weeks. I remember my first thought was ‘This just can't be true!'".

What has Linnaeus meant for you?

"Many people emphasise how wrong he was and how much better we are at understanding things today, but I think it's fantastic how right Linnaeus was. In fact, by and large his classification still holds good!"

In April 2007 Professor Nilsson announced that the important work carried out by a guest researcher into the signal molecule responsible for controlling plants' flowering could not be reproduced. He accordingly decided to withdraw the acclaimed article published in the journal Science in 2005. This setback does not affect his work in the field of forestry or any other publications from his research group.