Bibek Subedi: Plant Physiology First Author

Bibek Subedi, co-first author of “The START domain mediates Arabidopsis GLABRA2 dimerization and turnover independently of homeodomain DNA binding” 

Current Position: PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching/Research Assistant in Division of Biology at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, 66506 USA

Education: M. Sc. in Microbiology from Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal

Non-scientific Interests: Hiking, Cooking spicy foods, Gardening, Music, Movies

Brief bio: Despite an early fascination on how plants grow and respond to environmental stimuli, I preferred studying microbes and their interaction with hosts for my undergraduate and master’s degrees. I focused my master’s research on the comparative study of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase Negative Staphylococci in relation to their antimicrobial resistance and the ability to form biofilms. After joining Ph.D. program at K-State in 2017, I initially worked on a project characterizing a membrane protein involved in drug efflux in Staphylococcus aureus. However, I soon became interested in plant molecular biology because of my ever-growing interest in the regulation of plant development and its importance in global food production. The overall goal of my Ph.D. project is to identify and characterize post-translational modifications controlling developmentally important class IV homeodomain leucine zipper (HD-Zip IV) transcription factors in Arabidopsis. Working in the laboratory of Dr. Kathrin Schrick, I gained expertise in plant genetics where I learned to genetically manipulate the plant model organism Arabidopsis with transgenic approaches. I have been also applying my skills on molecular cloning to carry out mutagenesis of the target genes and I have been also investigating the HD-Zip IV protein turnover in Arabidopsis using proteomics and microscopy. I believe that the findings of my Ph. D. research will provide new insight into how the protein levels of the regulators of epidermal cell differentiation are fine-tuned in plants in response to environmental stressors. My core strengths include microbiology, molecular and cell biology, biochemistry and genetics. In addition, I am equipped with scientific writing, science communication and analytical skills. I worked closely with my supervisor Dr. Kathrin Schrick and previous lab members to prepare this manuscript and I am very pleased that our work is now being published in Plant Physiology.