Detlef Weigel is a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and an Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.   Professor Weigel studied biology in Bielefeld and Cologne, and received his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen in 1988, for his study of Drosophila development with Herbert Jäckle. His research interests moved towards plant development during his postdoctoral work with Elliot Meyerowitz at the California Institute of Technology, before joining the Salk faculty in 1993. Many key discoveries relating to floral induction, floral patterning and plant microRNAs were made in the Weigel lab. As recent examples, the Weigel lab identified the first plant microRNA mutant, and demonstrated that the FT gene is an important component of the long-sought after mobile signal which controls flowering. More recently, the Weigel lab has developed a second focus in evolutionary genomics. In collaboration with Perlegen Sciences, his lab has identified approximately half a million SNPs in Arabidopsis thaliana, making it the organism with the highest density SNP map per unit genomic sequence among all the model organisms, including humans. In another project, the Weigel lab has discovered the molecular mechanisms underlying incipient speciation in Arabidopsis.   Professor Weigel has received the Dieter Rampacher Award from the Max Planck Society, the Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation and the Charles Albert Shull Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists. He has also been elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.