Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Juan Carlos De la Concepcion

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Juan Carlos De la Concepcion, co-first author of NRC4 gene cluster is not essential for bacterial flagellin-triggered immunity

Current Position: Post-doc, Department of Biological Chemistry, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

Education: BSc in Biology, BSc Biochemistry and MSc in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology (University of Sevilla). Rotation PhD in plant and microbial science (John Innes centre)

Non-scientific Interests: sports, music, travelling, science, politics

Brief bio: Soon after I started my graduate studies, I got interested in plant sciences. First, I first got involved in scientific research as an intern in the department of plant biology and ecology of the University of Seville. In the last years of my graduate studies, I joined the Institute of Plant Biochemistry and Photosynthesis (IBVF) where I developed skills in molecular biology and biochemistry. Here I did my master thesis investigating the formation of the starch granule in plants. During this time, I also did placements as a summer student at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems (Stuttgart Universität) and the Department of Plant science (Cambridge University) through the IAESTE and AMGEN scholars programmes, respectively.

After finishing my masters, I joined the group of Professor Mark Stitt at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology through the Erasmus+ programme to continue working in plant primary metabolism. Immediately after, I got the opportunity to move to Norwich and work for a year as a pre-doctoral intern in the lab of Professor Sophien Kamoun lab at The Sainsbury Laboratory. There I investigated diverse aspects of molecular plant-microbe interactions. A topic that keeps fascinating me nowadays.

I then moved next door to John Innes Centre to take part in the Rotation PhD Programme in Plant and Microbial Science. During my PhD, I combined molecular biology, structural biology and biophysics to gain a mechanistic understanding about how the plant immune system recognizes and responds to pathogen threats, with the ultimate goal of engineering disease resistance.