Flower development of Lilium longiflorum - The Lilium information ...

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements
With a feeling of mission accomplished and great expectations for my return to
Brazil, I can finally express my deep appreciation towards those that supported me
during the preparation of this thesis and contributed, in so many ways, to this happy
ending. I start writing these pages with an immense rejoicing.
I would like to initiate the expression of my gratitude to the first people that
opened to me the doors of the Old Continent. My dear friend, Francine Lorena Cuquel,
who introduced me to Raoul Bino, during a congress in Piracicaba, the city where I did
my M.Sc. program. She knew that I was looking for an opportunity to go abroad and
extend my experiences on plant molecular biology. Raoul introduced me to Huub
Löffler, which in turn introduced me to my former supervisor Jurriaan Mes, my copromoter
Gerco Angenent and my professor Sacco de Vries. Later, as the institutional
rearrangement took place at PRI, Frans Krens received me as his Ph.D. student.
Here, I want to pronounce my admiration to Sacco, who taught me to face
Science with a great spirit, always keeping the humour and, through his attitude,
teaching me that Science can also be fun! Gerco introduced me to the MADS world,
and showed me that a brain can accumulate an amazing amount of information. Frans,
with his accurate scientific method, good administration skills and gentleness, showed
me that a person could be strong without ever losing the tenderness. You not only
made this thesis possible, guiding me through the mists of doubts and uncertainties,
but also made me a better scientist and improved my spirit.
In order to get a financial support from the Brazilian government through
CNPq, some people believed in me, assuring that I was capable of successfully
following a Ph.D. program. Those scientists were José Édson Fontes Figueiredo, Luiz
Antonio dos Santos Dias and Francine Lorena Cuquel. Thanks you all for the support,
friendship and example!
As soon as I was introduced in the former Genetics and Breeding Business Unit
at PRI, I was welcomed with an open heart by many people, especially Jurriaan, Huub,
Bernadette (to whom I own my first experiences with lily tissue culture and
transformation), Greetje, Betty, Ton, Ria Jongerius, Linda, Ria Vrielink, Herma,
Danny, Ludmila, Chris, Sjaak, Erik, Karin, Marcel, Jelle, and later by Jaan, Elma,
Marjan, Iris, Mark, Koen (with whom I discussed many of the constitutive weird
results), Theo (thanks for bringing me the nice lily mutant, which I report in chapter 6),
Kitty, Dianka, Carole, Alex, Paul, Wang. Cheers for all the support I received also
from the colleagues Lim, Si-Jun (with whom I gladly share the office), Ronald, Zifu
and Paulo (thanks for the friendship, political discussions, gatherings and lunches
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