Antonella Ferela: Plant Physiology First Author

Antonella Ferela, first author of “Interplay among ZF-HD and GRF transcription factors during Arabidopsis leaf development”

Current Position: Data Analyst, Iowa State University, United States.

Education: PhD in Biological Science and BS in Biotechnology, National University of Rosario, Argentina.

Non-scientific Interests: hiking, running, and spending time with family and friends.

Brief bio:  Since a young age, I have been curious about plant biology. I did a BS in Biotechnology and pursued a PhD advised by Dr. Javier Palatnik in the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Rosario (IBR), Argentina. For my thesis dissertation, I studied genes directly regulated by the microRNA miR396 and Growth Regulating Factors (GRFs) and wheat genetics. In the last years, I worked with interdisciplinary groups on public-private projects focused on field crops breeding and phenotyping, and plant regulatory affairs. My main interest is data science and analytics in plant science. In this publication in Plant Physiology, we show the importance of Zinc Finger Homeodomain (ZF-HD) transcription factors in plant development and reveal the link between ZF-HDs and GRFs in leaf development, primarily related to leaf senescence.