Christoph Dockter travels with a special woman from Copenhagen to Wernigerode in June 2014. For the scientist, who moved to the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Copenhagen after completing his studies and doctorate at the University of Mainz, Udda Lundqvist was the ‘queen of barley’. “She had several decades of experience researching barley mutants and was an extraordinary character,” recalls Dockter of his famous companion, with whom he attended an EUCARPIA conference in Wernigerode. “I was fortunate enough to work with her for several years. She would often sit on a folding chair at the edge of the field while I showed her individual plants,” says the scientist. “She commanded respect and was a real authority. With her experience, she treated young colleagues like me favourably, even if she was sometimes instructive.”

The scientist was always willing to help and advise the IPK, and even in her old age, she seized the opportunity to travel from Sweden to Gatersleben in 2013 to celebrate the institute’s 70th anniversary. However, Udda Lundqvist is not the only member of her family with a close connection to the institute. This connection dates back to the 1930s.

Her father, Fritz von Wettstein, campaigned for Hans Stubbe, who later became the founding director of the current IPK. After National Socialist-minded employees at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research in Müncheberg accused Stubbe of ‘political unreliability’ and he was dismissed without notice, von Wettstein employed him as a research assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biology in Berlin-Dahlem until 1943. Udda Lundqvist’s brother, Diter von Wettstein, later became a member of the IPK’s founding commission and served as the institute’s first chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, from 1972 to 1996, Diter von Wettstein was a professor at the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Copenhagen, where Christoph Dockter currently works.

The history of the research centre dates back to its founder, J.C. Jacobsen. After establishing the brewery in 1847, he set up a foundation in 1876. The foundation holds a majority stake in the world-famous Danish brewery and supports science and art. The foundation maintains the National History Museum in Frederiksborg Castle and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in central Copenhagen, among other things. Today, nearly 30 per cent of the Carlsberg Group’s dividends are invested in science, art, and sustainability initiatives. “J.C. Jacobsen was truly a visionary,” emphasises Christoph Dockter. Naturally, the research laboratory’s findings were also intended to improve the brewing process. For this reason, research was carried out into pure brewing yeast and the ideal protein content of barley, among other things. “But the concept of the pH value was also developed here in Copenhagen,” explains Dockter, who is now head of a working group at Carlsberg’s Research Laboratory. When he moved to Copenhagen in 2009, he was offered a postdoctoral position under Mats Hansson, thus joining the long tradition. Mats Hansson, in turn, was the last postdoc to work with Diter von Wettstein.

However, the von Wettstein family is not the only one with long-standing links to the IPK; the Carlsberg Research Laboratory also has such links. For instance, they have collaborated on publications concerning the flowering time (2012), spike (2015) and stalk structure (2018) of barley. This was followed by a publication in the renowned journal Nature in 2017. This dealt with the decoding of the first complete barley genome. While the IPK led the study, the Carlsberg Research Laboratory covered the costs of decoding one of the seven chromosomes. This close collaboration with Nils Stein and Martin Mascher continues to this day. In 2020, the first step towards the barley pangenome was taken with the complete sequencing of 20 genotypes. In other words, the entire genetic diversity of the barley species was decoded. In 2024, a further study on the barley pangenome was published in Nature, again in collaboration with the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, with Christoph Dockter as one of the main authors.

“I am very aware of the tradition of the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, and I know that I am working in a place steeped in history,” emphasises Christoph Dockter. He is referring to his experiences with Udda Lundqvist, as well as the research conducted by her brother, Dieter von Wettstein, in the 1950s, which focused on the structure of the stalk and the stability of special barley mutants. “From today’s perspective, it is fascinating to see the conclusions he drew back then without knowing the exact gene. Unfortunately, it was not until 2021 that Mats Hansson discovered the gene in question, which is located in a complex region of the genome. This was a few years after Diter von Wettstein's death in 2017.”

Today, Christoph Dockter is involved in both applied and basic research to improve the brewing process, just as he was when the foundation and the research centre were established. He believes the two go hand in hand, citing cereal genome research as an example. This could not have been so successful without the experience gained from mutant research. It is precisely this approach - linking mutation and genome research - that has been continued in another project since this spring. The IPK’s aim is to expand existing genome and transcriptome resources. Not only is the Carlsberg Research Laboratory supporting this project, in which research is being carried out on climate-resistant barley with numerous barley mutants, it is also supporting a project by Thorsten Schnurbusch.

Christoph Dockter is pleased not only that the tradition of Udda Lundqvist, the ‘Queen of Barley’, is continuing with projects like this, but also that a very special birthday is being celebrated this year: The research laboratory is 150 years old! So, here’s to that - with a real Carlsberg, of course!

More information:

https://www.carlsberggroup.com/who-we-are/carlsberg-research-laboratory/