Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Ariel Hernán Tomassi

Ariel Hernán Tomassi, first author of The intrinsically disordered protein CARP9 bridges HYL1 to AGO1 in the nucleus to promote micro RNA activity

Current Position: PhD fellow at Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral (CONICET-UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina

 

Education: Ph.D. in Biological Sciences 

 

Non-scientific Interests: traveling, music, series and movies, football, and Crossfit

 

Brief bio: As an undergraduate student, I was fascinated by molecular biology, especially in plants. I first joined the “Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral” as an intern to studying stress-responsive transcription factors from sunflowers. My curiosity led me to join Pablo Manavella’s lab, where I started my Ph.D. project in 2015. I was fascinated by how miRNA control plant development and stress response. Thus, I started investigating the mechanisms involved in miRNA loading into the RISC complex. I focused on studying CARP9, a protein identified through a forward genetic screening in the lab, which we found to act as a bridge, linking the miRNA precursors processing machinery with RISC complex. This exciting research project was the core of my thesis, work that allowed me to achieve my Ph.D. degree last March 2020.