Recognizing Plant Physiology author Shrikaar Kambhampati

Shrikaar Kambhampati, first author of Temporal changes in metabolism late in seed development affect biomass composition

Current Position: Research Scientist in Dr. Doug Allen’s lab, USDA-ARS/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 source-sink relationships and their control via phytohormones, seed development and stable isotope labeled mass spectrometry to uncover metabolic regulation. I obtained my Master’s degree at Trent University, Canada, where I worked on phytohormones and their control over source-sink relationships during soybean seed development, under the supervision of Dr. Neil Emery. After this, I worked with Dr. Frederic Marsolais at the University of Western Ontario for my PhD, 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 USDA 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. This paper is a product of my post-doctoral work where we attempted to comprehensively characterize metabolic changes over the course of soybean seed development. We used a combination of metabolite measurements and stable isotope labeling to infer temporal changes in 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.