I am Juliette Braganti, a French summer student in Uta’s team, working with Chai on rice crossings and maize mutants. I will be here until end of August. 
 

I started off at the University of Victoria (Canada) in biochemistry and biology and then moved to KTH (Sweden) for my masters in bioreactors and protein engineering. I did my PhD at the University of Cambridge (UK) in the Zoology Department on epithelial patterning in Drosophila eggs. My first postdoc was on centrosome migration in Drosophilaeggs and my second postdoc was on the genetic basis of parthenogenesis in Drosophila.

I received a BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Bogazici University in Istanbul and then completed a MSc degree in Environmental Sciences at the same university with a research project focused on the evaluation of mechanisms of increasing soil quality via plant-microbe interactions. Before I moved to the UK in 2021, I lived in Melbourne for one year to work in the role of kinases in plant sugar signalling project. Currently, I am a third year PhD student in the group of Prof. Dr. Uta Paszkowski

My interest in plant science started early in my career when I was in Spain for an erasmus experience. There I worked in a lab for 6 month where I learned the basis of molecular biology.

My work as a research technichan focused on supporting the strawberry transformations and other actinirrhizal plants. I also help with testing the plants after the transformation.

 I am now a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Paszkowski lab. My research focuses on genetic diversity in arbuscular mycorrhizal colonisation and host responsiveness in diverse rice cultivars.

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, where I completed my undergrad and postgrad degrees at the University of Cape Town. My PhD research centred on investigating regulation of an auxin biosynthetic gene during the plant salinity stress response. My postdoc project involves screening 150 African rice varieties for a breeding program to identify lines that exhibit enhanced drought tolerance upon mycorrhizal fungal colonisation. Thereafter, we aim to uncover the mechanism by which this occurs.

I did my PhD, in plant science at the University of Nottingham, investigating root anatomy in a range of species, with focuses on understanding the vestigialization of duckweed roots, and identifying drought tolerant root traits in pearl millet. I have now joined Uta Paszkowski’s lab, and will be researching arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in cassava.