Today, the VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology and VIB spin-offs are part of one of the world’s major agricultural biotechnology research and development clusters, employing over 1,000 people dedicated to plant biotechnology. The hub is mainly clustered around Ghent, with BASF and Syngenta as examples of large companies that are active in this area – each with their own specialized R&D centers. The US biotech company Inari also opened an R&D branch in Ghent, the company’s first expansion outside of the US. Inari develops higher-yielding, climate-resilient crops by tapping into the natural genetic diversity of seeds.

Next to VIB, Ghent is home to the scientific research institute ILVO, the Institute for Agriculture and Fisheries Research. ILVO scientists work on the sustainability of agriculture, fisheries and agri-food sector with the mission to produce enough healthy and varied food while staying within our planetary limits.

The cluster works towards agricultural innovations, such as climate-proof crops, crops that will facilitate the protein shift, and bio-based soil improvers.

The VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (PSB), led by Professor Dirk Inzé, located at the heart of the plant biotechnology campus in Ghent, is known as one of the world-leading centers in plant science. The cornerstone of PSB is curiosity-driven research on basic cellular mechanisms. Much of this research is performed on Arabidopsis as well as other plants including maize, poplar, tomato, wheat, Marchantia, duckweed, canola, soybean, and plants producing high-value specialized metabolites.

Scientists can access field-specific tools and technologies via PSB's core groups, including the Compound Screening Facility, the Plant Single Cell Platform, and the Crop Genome Engineering Facility. The latter operates a maize transformation platform that can be accessed by academic labs and by companies. The Single Cell Platform offers single cell analysis infrastructure and expertise to guide projects from the drawing board to comprehensive datasets. Single cell technology can be used to accelerate targeted plant breeding and genome engineering and precision fertilization.

Next to these core groups, the Center harbors impressive light microscopy infrastructure and expertise.

VIB has a long-standing tradition of converting basic plant science into successful companies: Devgen (1997), CropDesign (1998), Biotalys (2013), Aphea.Bio (2017) and Protealis (2021). CropDesign is now a BASF Plant Science company, while Devgen was taken over by Syngenta. Biotalys and Aphea.Bio create next-generation agricultural biologicals to increase crop yields and to protect crops against specific pests and diseases. Our newest kid on the block, Protealis, aims to harvest the full potential of legume crops with innovative breeding technologies and proprietary seed coatings. We work closely with our spin-off companies, which has resulted in substantial R&D investments.

Early 2021 we established a plant science and agricultural technology incubator at the former site of CropDesign (BASF). This new incubator hikes up agricultural biotechnology starters by providing a unique environment with access to the latest technologies. The site houses high-technological greenhouses including a very large, automated phenotyping facility for up to 60,000 plants and a robotic sprayer allowing to test the plant response to crop protection agents, biologicals, and biostimulants. Together with ILVO, we deliver mentoring programs, explore collaborative opportunities and unlock networks to help early-stage companies mature quickly. 

In the 1970s at Ghent University, Marc Van Montagu and Jeff Schell developed a technology to stably transfer genes to plants. This method is since then used worldwide to genetically improve plants. It was on the shoulders of these giants that VIB was founded in 1996 and an agro-biotech cluster started to develop in Ghent. In 2000, Professor Van Montagu founded IPBO (International Plant Biotechnology Outreach). IPBO's goal is to promote technology and knowledge transfer for sustainable agro-industrial development, especially in developing countries.