Plant biomass can serve as a renewable and potentially carbon-neutral raw material for the production of bioenergy and a variety of other biobased products. The major long-term goal of the Bioenergy and Bio-aromatics group is to engineer plant cell wall composition for a more cost-effective conversion of plant biomass into pulp, fermentable sugars or aromatic building blocks, without adversely affecting plant yield. Because the cell wall polymer lignin plays a central role in these conversion processes, we focus on understanding the biosynthesis, polymerization and structure of lignin, and use this information to tailor plants with new properties. Field trials are established to investigate the new traits in a relevant environment. We also have a major activity in characterizing plant aromatic metabolites alongside with their biosynthetic pathways and genes by a GWAS approach.