Nargis Parvin Laha: Plant Physiology First Author

Nargis Parvin Laha, first author of “INOSITOL (1,3,4) TRIPHOSPHATE 5/6 KINASE1-Dependent Inositol Polyphosphates Regulate Auxin Responses in Arabidopsis”

Current Position: DBT-Ramalingaswami Re-Entry Fellow, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

Education:

PhD, Biology, Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich, Germany

M.Sc Botany, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India

B.Sc Botany (Life Science), Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India

Non-scientific Interests: Travel, Photography, Music

Brief bio: After finishing my Bachelor and Master’s degree in Botany from Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India, I moved to Germany with the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to pursue PhD studies at the Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich, Germany. My PhD work at Prof. Dr. Ute Vothknecht’s Lab focused on calcium/calmodulin regulation of mitochondrial protein import in Arabidopsis. After finishing my PhD in 2015, I spent 3 months at the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Gabriel Schaaf, at the University of Tübingen, Germany where I got exposed to the world of inositol phosphate (InsP) signalling and investigated the InsP binding specificity of the jasmonate receptor complex. After working with Prof. Dr. Marja Timmermans at the University of Tübingen for a brief period where I learned about maize genetics, I rejoined Prof. Dr. Schaaf’s laboratory at the University of Bonn, Germany in 2017 to work again with my favorite weed, where I was investigating the involvement of InsP species in auxin signalling and phosphate starvation responses. During the COVID pandemic, I moved back to India and joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 2021 as a DBT-Ramalingaswami Re-Entry Fellow where I am exploring calcium sensing and signaling in plants.