My Research
My organism
I primarily work with Arabidopsis thaliana a model plant species which is easy to work with because it is small, it flowers, grows fast, and has a small genome which is fully sequenced making it ideal for genetic studies.
Light Signaling in Plants
I'm interested in how plants are able to perceive and adapt to external cues like light and temperature. When seeds are planted in the soil and germinates, the growing plant undergoes elongates their hypocotyl until it is able to perceive light and perform photosynthesis. The transition to growth in the light is called photomorphogenesis. Many downstream effects and signaling pathways on the transcriptional level occur to control the development and growth of the plant in different conditions. In leaf tissue, plants perceive light through photoreceptors called phytochromes where photosynthesis takes place.
Nuclear Organization
Inside our cells is an organelle called the nucleus which contains our (DNA) genome. During mitosis and meiosis our chromosomes organize and move. Even during interphase when division does not occur the components in the nucleus are dynamic. The study about the way that our DNA is organized in the space of the nucleus is called nuclear organization. The re-organization creates an additional level of regulation of genes on a large and small scale.