My early work focused on the activation of the cell cycle during lateral root initiation and my group established an experimental set-up to synchronize the activation of pericycle cells for lateral root formation. This system laid the foundation for a number of transcriptome studies that profiled lateral root initiation and development, revealing several novel signaling components. My current work aims to understand how the branching pattern of roots becomes established by disentangling the molecular basis of lateral root spacing mechanisms that guarantee an optimal uptake of water and nutrients from the soil.