Nevedha Ravindran: Plant Physiology First Author

Nevedha Ravindran, first author of “B-box protein BBX32 integrates light and brassinosteroid signals to inhibit cotyledon opening”

Current Position: PhD student at Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India

Education: B.Tech (Agricultural Biotechnology) from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

Non-scientific Interests: Volleyball, pencil sketching, and reading novels

Brief bio: I grew up in a small town in southern India where agriculture used to be a common occupation. I was always fascinated about plants and plant related activities. attracted me a lot is school. My interest led me to choose Agricultural Biotechnology for my bachelor’s degree that I received from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU). After my bachelor’s, I got the chance to work on rice in Seed Science and Technology Department of TNAU. My next assignment was in Dr. Anjan Banerjee’s Lab in IISER-Pune where I worked on a potato KNOX family transcription factor, POTH15. In 2015, I got an opportunity to work in Dr. Sourav Datta’s Lab for my doctoral research in Arabidopsis. As the lab was interested in unraveling the diverse roles of the light-regulated BBX genes, I started investigating the BBX genes that regulate seedling development during transition from dark to light. In dark, the phytohormone Brassinosteroid (BR) inhibits unfloding of the cotyledons. However the precise molecular mechanism regulating BR-mediated opening of cotyledons was not well known.  During our study, we found that BBX32, a light-regulated gene, specifically expresses in cotyledons and acts in the downstream of Brassinosteroid pathway to inhibit cotyledon opening in dark. In future, I am looking forward to work on tissue-specific responses mediated by interaction between environmental cues and endogenous phytohormones.