Wilhelm Boland

Wilhelm Boland ( born 1950 ) is a German chemist.

Academic Career

After his PhD (1978) and habilitation (1986 ) at the University of Cologne, Boland 1987 received a C3 - Professor for Organic Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe. From 1994 he was a C4 - Professor of Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Bonn. Since 1996 he has been Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and Head of the Department of Bioorganic Chemistry. In 1998 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the Friedrich -Schiller- University Jena.

In his research, Boland involved in the defense chemistry of leaf beetles and the induced plant defense. Interactions of microorganisms with plants and insects are more research topics in his department. Besides the development of new methods for analytical and synthetic chemistry, he is devoted to mechanisms of sequestration of plant metabolites by leaf beetle larvae and generally the detoxification of plant metabolites in the gut of insects.

Honors and Awards

• Silverstein - Simeone Lecture Award of the International Society of Chemical Ecology 1995
• Member of the North Rhine- Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( since 2002)
• Hans Herloff Inhoffen Medal of the Society for Biotechnology (GBF ) 2005
• Peter Hemmerich Lecture, University of Konstanz, 2006
• President of the International Society of Chemical Ecology 2008-2009

Publications (selection )

• Arimura, G., Ozawa, R., Shimoda, T., Nishioka, T., Boland, W., Takabyashi, J. ( 2000). Herb Ivory -induced volatiles elicit defense genes in lima bean leaves. Nature, 406 (6795), 512-515. doi: 10.1038/35020072
• Kuhn, J., Pettersson, EM, Field, BK, Burse, A., Termonia, A., Pasteels, JM, Boland, W. ( 2004). Selective transport systems mediate sequestration of plant glucosides in leaf beetles: A molecular basis for adaptation and evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101 (38 ), 13808-13813. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0402576101
• Heil, M., Greiner, S., Meimberg, H., Kruger, R., Noyer, JL, Heubl, G., Linsenmair, KE, Boland, W. ( 2004). Evolutionary change from induced to constitutive expression of an indirect plant resistance. Nature, 430 (6996), 205-208. doi: 10.1038/nature02703
• Mithöfer, A., Wanner, G., Boland, W. ( 2005). Effects of feeding Spodoptera littoralis on lima bean leaves. II Continuous mechanical wounding resembling insect feeding is Sufficient to elicit herbivory -related volatile emission. Plant Physiology, 137 (3), 1160-1168. doi: 10.1104/pp.104.054460
• Heil, M., Rattke, J., Boland, W. ( 2005). Postsecretory hydrolysis of nectar sucrose and specialization in ant / plant mutualism. Science, 308 (5721), 560-563. doi: 10.1126/science.1107536
• Arimura, G., Kost, C., Boland, W. ( 2005). Herbivore -induced, indirect plant defense. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1734, 91-111. doi: 10.1016/j.bbalip.2005.03.001
• Walter, A., Mazars, C., Maitre Jean, M., Hopke, J., Ranjeva, R., Boland, W., Mithöfer, A. ( 2007). Structural requirements of jasmonates and synthetic analogues as inducers of Ca2 signal in the nucleus and the cytosol of plant cells. Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 48 (25 ), 4783-4785. doi: 10.1002/anie.200604989
• Dabrowska, P., Freitak, D., Vogel, H., Heckel, DG, Boland, W. ( 2009). The phyto -hormones precursor OPDA is isomerized in the insect well by a single, specific glutathione transferase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106 (38 ), 16304-16309. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906942106
• Kirsch, R., Vogel, H., Muck, A., Rich Forest, K., Pasteels, JM, Boland, W. ( 2011). Host plant shifts affect, a major defense enzyme in Chrysomela lapponica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 4897-4901. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1013846108
• Mithöfer, A., Boland, W. ( 2012). Plant defense against herbivores: Chemical aspects. Annual Review of Plant Biology. 63:25.1-25.20. doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-042110-103854