Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Viera Kovacova

Viera Kovacova, co-first author of A coevolved EDS1-SAG101-NRG1 module mediates cell death signaling by TIR-domain immune receptors

Current Position: Bioinformatician of CRC-1310 at the University of Cologne (Cologne, Germany)

Education: MSc from the Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic), PhD in genetics from the Masaryk University (Czech Republic)

Non-scientific Interests: sports, books, NO zijemvedu

Brief biography: I am a bioinformatician who fell in deep love with evolution, plants and retroviruses. After my studies at the Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic), I decided to focus more on science than on technology. I joined the Group of Prof. Vyskot at the Institute of Biophysics (Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) and worked on evolutionary aspects of horizontally transferred genes and transposable elements in plants. In 2014, I spent a couple of months in the Group of Prof. Meyer (Konstanz, Germany) to improve my bioinformatic skills using nonmodel fish species instead of plants. Since July 2014, I’ve worked at the University of Cologne (Germany) under the supervision of Prof. A. Beyer and prof. M. Laessig. As a bioinformatician of CRC-1310 (previously  CRC-680), I meet many inspiring researchers, get in touch with enthusiastic collaborators, face many challenging projects and enjoy vivid academic life.