Comments on Collaboration - My Experience with the DKZ.2R Rent-an-Expert Program

Comments on Collaboration - My Experience with the DKZ.2R Rent-an-Expert Program

At the beginning of this year (2025), I received an email regarding the DKZ.2R “Rent an expert” program. I was very interested in this initiative and therefore applied for support from the scientific consulting team at the Rhine-Ruhr Center for Scientific Data Literacy (DKZ.2R) for assistance with my data analysis.

I obtained my master’s degree in Plant Nutrition from the China Agricultural University and pursued my PhD study at the University of Hohenheim. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation, Crop Functional Genomics, at the University of Bonn.
My research expertise includes plant culturing, molecule cloning, biochemical analysis and limited data analysis experience on large-scale NGS datasets.
Since the beginning of April 2025, two DKZ.2R consultants were assigned to me: Tarek Iraki, who is proficient in programming languages such as Python, and Lennard Maßmann, who specializes in working with R. Together, we collaboratively worked on my Postdoctoral project, which focuses on the molecular and genomic dissection of lateral root development in maize.

To kick off the collaboration we first of all held a group meeting where I provided an overview of my project.
Subsequently, we developed a plan outlining the specific analyses required. Upon agreement, we distributed the specific tasks based on our respective expertise and established a bi-weekly Zoom meeting to update each other on the progress. In the case of urgent issues, additional meetings were arranged to solve them promptly. The consulting period lasted six months and concluded in October of 2025. With the help of the two DKZ.2R consultants, I made substantial progress in my research project. Currently, I am summarizing my results. Both Lennard and Tarek will be acknowledged in the final publication.

Overall, in my view, the “Rent-an-Expert” consulting program is extremely valuable. It facilitated my data analysis process and helped me to gain new ideas from different perspectives.
The program is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology, and Space, which means it is free of charge for anyone seeking support from the DKZ.2R experts.
Therefore, I strongly recommend expanding this program to assist more researchers.

Dr. Yaping Zhou
University of Bonn,
INRES-Crop Functional Genomics
Römerstraße 164
D-53117 Bonn