Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Rodrigo Siqueira Reis

Rodrigo Siqueira Reis, first author of Modulation of shoot phosphate level and growth by PHOSPHATE1 upstream open reading frame

Current Position: Postdoc at University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Education: PhD in Molecular Biology (University of Sydney, Australia), MSc in Biochemistry (UFRJ, Brazil) and BSc in Biochemistry (UFV, Brazil)

Non-scientific Interests: Football, camping, podcasts, movies, books

Brief bio: My passion for science started when I first entered a research lab as intern, and even though I mostly screwed up, I was hooked. Few years later I had my first real taste of plant biology, in Australia. I was totally blown away by RNA silencing and regulation of translation, and have been working with noncoding RNAs, translation regulation and their interplay ever since. Now in my postdoc, I have mostly worked with translation regulation by noncoding RNAs, and this work with PHO1 uORF was initially a minor side project that grew to become a main, very exciting work. PHO1 is a very particular protein, because in addition to transporting phosphate from root to shoot, it also seems to be a key phosphate sensor for its levels in soil. When we realized that PHO1’s mRNA harbours an upstream open reading frame, it immediately pushed my “translation regulation” button, and that was the starting point for the work described in the manuscript. Aside from my deep interest in the RNA world, I enjoy following a range of scientific topics and pondering about Science in the “real” world. At home, I have fun with my wife watching our little boy growing and enjoying the simplest things in life.