Recognizing Plant Cell authors: María Jazmín Abraham-Juárez

María Jazmín Abraham-Juárez, first author of Evolutionary Variation in MADS-box Dimerization Affects Floral Development and Protein Abundance in Maize

Current Position: Researcher, CONACyT- División de Biología Molecular, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICYT). San Luis Potosí, SLP., México

Education: PhD in Plant Biotechnology. Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Unidad Irapuato (CINVESTAV Irapuato)

Non-scientific Interests: travelling, gardening, astronomy

Brief bio: I grew up in a small town surrounded by strawberry crops on my parents’ farm, which raised my interest in plant biology very early. My research has always been focused to deciphering molecular basis of plant reproduction and development, and I have been fortunate to have great mentors on the field. I completed my PhD at CINVESTAV Irapuato Mexico in the Lab of Dr. June Simpson, working on asexual reproduction in Agave plants. I did a postdoctoral stay at LANGEBIO in the Lab of Dr. Luis Herrera-Estrella where I started working with plant proteins using Arabidopsis as a model. Then, I left Mexico to work with Dr. Sarah Hake at UC Berkeley, where I started my research with maize in a project about protein-protein interactions of new components on developmental signaling. Then, in the Dr. Madelaine Bartlett Lab at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, I worked on identification of maize MADS-box protein complexes in planta. Recently, I returned to Mexico to work as a researcher at IPICYT. Now, I am combining my research on plants with antibody research and starting my own group.