Meristem Activity and Identity Group

Lateral growth in plants originates from the vascular cambium, where stem cells are located. Cambium provides thickness to plant organs by generating conductive tissues - xylem (wood) toward the center and phloem toward the organ periphery. Vascular development continues as long as the plant grows, and proliferation and differentiation of these tissues from the cambium is controlled not only laterally but also along the plant body. As of January 2022, I have started establishing my independent research group at the University of Helsinki. In my research I am interested in understanding molecular mechanisms that regulate cambial development, lateral growth and vascular continuity in plants using tree (poplar and birch) stems and Arabidopsis roots as model systems.

Project overviews

Through a functional genomics approach, we have identified several novel transcription factors (TFs) that are activated by the plant hormone cytokinin, an enhancer of cambial cell division rate and lateral growth in plants. Currently we are exploring how these TFs regulate thickening of plant organs both in hybrid aspen trees and Arabidopsis roots using state-of-the-art molecular biology tools, such as knocking them out via CRISPR-Cas9 or tissue specific inducible overexpression and (live) confocal imaging.

We also would like to study how trees respond to local changes in cambial activity in short and long term and how vascular continuity and physiology along the tree trunk is affected from these changes. For this purpose, we are designing an innovative new system to genetically inhibit lateral growth at different heights along the plant body through inducible knockout of a cambial factor.

Finally, we would like to identify more key loci driving enhanced growth and carbon sink in trees through comparative single cell transcriptome analysis of Arabidopsis, birch and poplar and test systematically the roles of different candidate genes.

Supervision

- 01.09.2021 to present: Supervisor to Master`s Degree student Mr. Suzan Kumer Bhadhury (Erasmus-Mundus MSc, emPLANT, University of Helsinki, preliminary defense date: June 2022)

- 01.09.2019 to present: Co-supervisor for doctoral student MSc. Leo Vainio with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ari Pekka Mähönen (University of Helsinki, preliminary defense date: September 2023)

- 02.09.2019 – 31.01.2019: Supervisor to Erasmus Exchange Technical Degree student Mr. Markus Jan Heidema (From MboRijnland, The Netherlands)

- 25.03.2019 – 16.08.2019: Supervisor to Erasmus Exchange Master`s Degree student Miss. Iris Zahn (From Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

- 01.07.2018 – 31.08.2018: Supervisor to Erasmus Exchange Bachelor`s degree student Miss. Marta Ibáñez Lazaro (from University of Zaragoza, Spain)

Teaching

- Completed course in Pedagogics (Teaching in Higher Education, basic course: 4,5 ECTS, 2011)

- Plant Developmental Biology course (lecturer), University of Helsinki, Finland (February 2020, 2021)

- Advanced Molecular Biology course (laboratory TA), University of Helsinki, Finland (April 2018, 2021) 

- Signal Transduction in Plants course (lecturer), University of Helsinki, Finland (October 2020)

- Effects of auxin and cytokinin on organogenesis in tissue culture (laboratory TA), UPSC, Umeå, Sweden, (2010 to 2014) 

- Plant Anatomy (laboratory TA), UPSC, Sweden, (2011 to 2013)