Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Romário de Melo

Romário de Melo, first author of Magnesium maintains length of circadian period in Arabidopsis

Current Position: Execution Manager – Global Medical Affairs

Education: BSc. Biology (Genetics), MSc Plant Biotechnology (Virology), PhD Natural Sciences (Biology and Biotechnology)

Non-scientific Interests: Soccer, electric guitar, biographies/novels, Motor Racing, Chess, cooking, wild nature

Brief bio: After receiving an offer to lead a project investigating the link between Magnesium (Mg) deficiency and transcription of circadian clock genes in Arabidopsis, the outcome was this beautiful Circadian Biology collaborative research showing that plants biological clock requires appropriate Mg nutrition status to maintain its endogenous circadian period synchronized with external daily cues, such as light/dark cycles. Following mathematical modelling predictions, physiological experiments demonstrated that Mg deficiency disrupts circadian oscillations rather by affecting global transcription/translation levels than directly regulating core-circadian clock genes individually. Similar results had been observed earlier in Ostreococcus tauri, an alga that shares a common ancestor with plants.

Prior to that, I earned a BSc. degree from the Southwest Bahia State University (UESB) – Brazil, where I also learned Science in practice in the GenPlanta Research Group led by Prof. Antonio Carlos Oliveira. Following up on that research, I received a MSc. degree in Plant Biotechnology in the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) Virology Lab led by Prof. Antonia Figueira do Reis Figueira – Brazil. I was awarded a PhD in Natural Sciences (Magna cum Laude) in the Group of Prof. Ute Krämer at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum – Germany. Before concluding the PhD, I had already started the Postdoc project at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in the LPGMP led by Prof. Nathalie Verbruggen – Belgium.