Recognizing Plant Physiology authors: Swayoma Banerjee

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Swayoma Banerjee, co-first author of Spatial profiles of phosphate in roots indicate developmental control of uptake, recycling, and sequestration

Current Position: Process Engineer, Intel Corp.

Education: PhD, Biology, Texas A&M University, USA

Non-scientific Interests: music, travel

Brief bio: I completed my PhD in Biology in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. Wayne Versaw and Dr. Rene Garcia. For my dissertation project, I defined live imaging methods for a FRET-based phosphate biosensor to monitor subcellular Pi concentrations in plants and animals. I also developed a microinjection-based assay to calibrate this biosensor to report absolute cytosolic Pi concentrations in live Arabidopsis roots. With this imaging approach, I showed that cytosolic Pi concentrations vary between developmental zones of the root, with the highest concentration in the transition zone, and that this distribution pattern is maintained irrespective of changes in external Pi levels. Currently, I am an engineer at Intel developing next generation microprocessors.