Recognizing Plant Direct authors: Shrikaar Kambhampati

Shrikaar Kambhampati co-first author of The soybean (Glycine max L.) cytokinin oxidase/dehydrogenase multigene family; Identification of natural variations for altered cytokinin content and seed yield

Current Position: Research Scientist in Dr. Doug Allen’s lab, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO, USA

Education: Ph.D., University of Western Ontario, London, ON Canada; M.Sc., Trent University, Peterborough, ON Canada

Non-scientific interests: Cycling, more cycling, even more cycling!

Brief Bio: My research interests include hormonal regulation of source-sink relationships, seed development and stable isotope labeled mass spectrometry to uncover metabolic regulation. This paper is the outcome of one of my first projects as a plant biologist that got me hooked to cytokinins and its potential for improving sink strength during seed development. After working with my amazing mentor Dr. Neil Emery (with whom I did my M.Sc. research) on Soybean seed development, I moved on to PhD with Dr. Frederic Marsolais at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in London, Ontario and worked towards understanding carbon and nitrogen partitioning in Arabidopsis roots. I was first introduced to stable isotopes and high resolution mass spectrometry during my time in Dr. Marsolais’ lab. Upon completion of PhD, I joined Dr. Doug Allen’s lab at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center as Postdoc coming back to soybean seed development and this time working on source-sink relationships from the perspective of central carbon metabolism. My future goals are to better elucidate the influence of phytohormones on central carbon metabolism and their role in dictating the source and sink relationships leading to accumulation of valuable biomass components in developing seeds.