Naresh Loudya: The Plant Cell First Author

/in /by

Naresh Loudya, first author of “Mutations in the chloroplast inner envelope protein TIC100 impair and repair chloroplast protein import and impact retrograde signalling”

Current Position:  Post-doctoral Research Associate, Royal Holloway University of London. I am fortunate to be about to join as Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

Education:  PhD Biological Sciences, supervised by Dr Enrique Lopez Juez (Royal Holloway University of London) and Prof. Paul Jarvis (University of Oxford)

MSc Plant Biotechnology, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, India

BSc Biotechnology, Priyadarshini College, Kakatiya University, India

Non-scientific Interests: Family, walking, gardening, cooking, watching documentaries (nature, evolution, space).

Brief bio:  As a child, observing the germinating plants in the garden, emerging new leaves of various plants on the way to school and plucking young tamarind leaves for my mom’s delicious dal recipe, I always wondered why the younger leaves of those plants are less green and how they turn dark green over time.

I became interested in plant biology from the teaching of a passionate high school teacher, Mrs Prasuna. My fascination with chloroplasts continued, after my degree, during the master’s research project where I worked on understanding the effect of cyanobacteria on seed germination supervised by Dr Eapen Koshy and Dr Blessymole Alex.

While lecturing in the University, I was inspired by the work of Prof. Paul Jarvis and Dr Enrique Lopez-Juez, so I joined for a PhD in chloroplast biology. I had an incredible learning experience in the Royal Holloway lab (great discussions, exchange of ideas, the encouraging response to questions and learning troubleshooting) and in stays in Oxford. One day I ran to ask a question that occurred in the shower, could it be that cue8 virescence is an indication of chloroplasts remaining in the young plastid stage for a longer time. Thanks to all the people involved in the current and other research works and the reviewers. I am pleased to have this publication in The Plant Cell.

I hope to continue my passion to understand how cells fill with chloroplasts, learning the beauty of the “greening” process at IISc.