Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Ignacio Lescano

Ignacio Lescano, first author of Arabidopsis thaliana Ureide Permease 5 (AtUPS5) connects cell compartments involved in Ureide metabolism

Current Position: Postdoc in the Plant biology laboratory, CIQUIBIC-CONICET (Argentina)

Education: Degree in Biology and Ph.D. in Biology (National University of Córdoba, Argentina)

Non-scientific Interests: Crossfit, music, guitar

Brief bio: During the undergraduate course of Plant Physiology at the National University of Córdoba, I was fascinated with the molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to adaptive responses of plants. There, I met Marcelo Desimone and Claudio Gonzalez, excellent professors who captivated me to study more in deep plant molecular biology. Under their direction, I completed my undergraduate work and Ph.D. thesis in the Laboratory of Plant Physiology. I linked up there with exceptional people with whom I still work collaboratively encouraging the critical analysis and discussion of our results. We first described the accumulation and transport of allantoin as a novel molecular mechanism for salt stress tolerance. To understand how this compound moves in the plant body we characterized in detail the subcellular distribution and topology of ureide permeases in collaboration with Karin Schumacher at the Centre for Organismal Studies (Heidelberg, Germany). I’m currently working as a postdoc under the supervision of María Elena Álvarez in the Plant Biology laboratory (CIQUIBIC-CONICET). Our goal is to identify the molecular components contributing to DNA repair and demethylation during seed germination and stress responses in plants.