Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Galileo Estopare Araguirang

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Galileo Estopare Araguirang, first author of The 4 Arabidopsis Choline/Ethanolamine Kinase Isozymes Play Distinct Roles in Metabolism and Development

Current Position: PhD Candidate (Biochemistry) in Prof. Philip Wigge’s Lab under the prestigious International Max Planck Research School- Primary Metabolism and Plant Growth (IMPRS-PMPG) PhD Program, Germany

Education: MSc Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (minor in Botany), University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), Philippines (2018); MSc Thesis on Molecular Plant Biochemistry, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany (2017); Winter School on Quantitative Systems Biology, International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy (2016); BSc Biology (major in Cell and Molecular Biology; Cum laude), UPLB, Philippines (2013)

Non-scientific Interests: musical theater, table tennis, anime, Korean drama (K-drama)

Brief Biography: It is really humbling that I have been fortunate enough to be under the guidance of not one but four award-winning and great academic mentors who are inspiring me to become a world-class scientist, too. During the course of my MSc program, I was directly supervised by an outstanding professor and immensely supportive academic mentor, Dr. Maribel L. Dionisio-Sese. I carried out and completed my MSc thesis in Prof. Dr. Alfred Batschauer’s Lab at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany where I studied the protein photobiochemistry and structural properties of a novel Arabidopsis cryptochrome 2 mutant, cry2I404F (Araguirang et al. in Planta 251: 33, 2020). In 2018, I flew to Taiwan after being accepted as a summer intern under the highly competitive Taiwan International Graduate Program-International Internship Program (TIGP-IIP) in Dr. Yuki Nakamura’s Lab at the Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology (IPMB), Academia Sinica. While I was still an intern, Dr. Nakamura then offered me a new research position which he opened exclusively just for me so I could further study and extensively work on phospholipid metabolism (CEKs) and some uncharacterized metabolite transporters. After an intensive selection process, I joined the Wigge Lab in October 2019 as an IMPRS student where my chief work focuses on temperature sensing and energy signaling in Arabidopsis. I really hope that in the long run I will be able to make a difference in the lives of many younger Filipinos back home by inspiring them to also pursue research and learn to find a sense of purpose in discovery. And interestingly, if I were not in the lab striving to do good science, I would most likely be in musical theater performing and singing my heart out.

 

You can find more about me here: https://www.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/person/102073/2213676