Leonard Blaschek: The Plant Cell First Author

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Leonard Blaschek, first author of “Different combinations of laccase paralogs nonredundantly control the amount and composition of lignin in specific cell types and cell wall layers in Arabidopsis”

Current Position: EMBO postdoctoral fellow at Copenhagen University

Education: BSc Biology, Greifswald University (2013–2015); MSc Molecular plant biology, Uppsala University (2015–2017); PhD Plant physiology, Stockholm University (2017–2022)

Non-scientific Interests: Hiking, climbing & music

Brief bio: Becoming intrigued by cell walls during my Master’s, I joined Edouard Pesquet’s group at Stockholm University for a PhD project to disentangle the cell type-specific functions of different laccase paralogs in lignin formation. Looking at the mechanism of lignification in detail made me appreciate the enormous chemical diversity of lignin. It also made me curious about the functional dimension of this diversity, leading to work associating specific lignins with different mechanical parameters. Since, my curiosity about the complex interactions and functional interdependencies between different cell wall polymers and the environment has brought me to Staffan Persson’s lab in Copenhagen, where I investigate the feedback between cell wall integrity sensing and cellulose biosynthesis.