Dr. Axel Diederichsen
Axel Diederichsen dedicated his career to the conservation and study of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture to support ecological and economic viability of the food and agricultural sector. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in plant breeding from the University of Göttingen, Germany, in 1997 while working at the German national genebank of the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research at Gatersleben. After working in plant in plant breeding, he became in 1998 Curator and Research Scientist for the Canadian national genebank Plant Gene Resources of Canada at the Saskatoon Research and Development Centre of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. His major achievements are in the field of diversity assessment and evolution of flax, coriander, oat, wheat and pulse crops. From April 2010 to June 2011, he worked for the Nordic Genetic Resources Center at Alnarp, Sweden, and conducted a study on wheat diversity. Since 2017, Axel Diederichsen has been the Canadian National Focal Point for Plant Genetic Resources at the Commission on Genetic Resources and the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He is Leader of the PROCINORTE Taskforce on Genetic Resources – NORGEN.