Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Tina Schreier

Tina Schreier, first author of LIKE SEX4 1 acts as a β-amylase-binding scaffold on starch granules during starch degradation

Current Position: SNF Early Postdoc Mobility Fellow in the group of Prof. Julian Hibberd, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge

Education: PhD in Plant Biochemistry in the group of Prof. Samuel C. Zeeman at ETH Zurich, BSc and MSc in Biochemistry at the University of Zurich

Non-scientific Interests: Spending quality time with family and friends, travelling and exploring new places, cooking, visiting botanic gardens around the world, playing tennis

Brief bio: I enjoy exploring how plants function and how they ultimately facilitate life on this planet through photosynthesis. I am keen on exploring the function of a protein at the biochemical level, digging deeper than their annotated functions. By doing this, I elucidated the non-canonical roles of two enzymes involved in chloroplast metabolism during my PhD in the group of Sam Zeeman at ETH Zurich. The highlighted paper documents one of these examples. The take home message from my research is that enzymes can play multiple non-canonical roles that you do not expect!

I’m currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the group of Julian Hibberd at the University of Cambridge, studying how cell-to-cell connectivity facilitated the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in the Cleome family. I was recently awarded a EMBO Long-Term Fellowship to continue my work in Julian’s group.