Jutta A. Baldauf: Plant Physiology First Author

Jutta Baldauf, first author of “Single-parent expression complementation contributes to phenotypic heterosis in maize hybrids”

Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Crop Functional Genomics lab, INRES, University of Bonn, Germany

Education: PhD in Genetics, University of Bonn, Germany; M.Sc. in Crop Sciences, University of Hohenheim, Germany; B.Sc. in Agricultural Biology, University of Hohenheim, Germany

Non-scientific Interests: family, gardening, running, hiking, tailoring

Brief bio: During my Bachelor and Master studies at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, I started to focus my interests on plant breeding and molecular genetics. I conducted my Master thesis at the department of Biostatistics in cooperation with the German plant breeding company KWS. Following this, I joined the group of Frank Hochholdinger at the University Bonn, Germany, to study the transcriptomic landscape of diverse maize hybrids and their parental inbred lines during early stages of root development as a PhD project. The key insight obtained during this work is that single-parent expression (SPE) complementation is a general mechanism, which results in hundreds of additionally active genes and their encoded biological functions in maize hybrids. SPE complementation describes the observation that several hundred genes are exclusively expressed in only one of the two parental inbred line and the hybrid. Currently, in my postdoctoral studies I am aiming to learn more about the functional role of those genes during heterosis manifestation in maize.