Recognizing Plant Physiology first authors: Živa Ramšak

Živa Ramšak, first author of Network modelling unravels mechanisms of crosstalk between ethylene and salicylate signalling in potato

Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Education: PhD in Bioinformatics (Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Non-scientific Interests: Music, cooking, running, chess, swing dance

Brief bio: I received my Bachelor’s degree in Slovenia, where my research was focused on isolation of a particular toxin mutants for the purpose of proving that a single amino acid is responsible for its pH dependency. Meanwhile, I worked a bit on protein homology modelling, which eventually led me to abandon the wet lab and focus solely on computational approaches. This is how my path ended up at the University of Glasgow, where I was awarded the Master of Research in Bioinformatics for work on deciphering conserved protein-protein interacting surfaces in proteins. The next topic shift followed upon my return to Slovenia, where in order to enhance our understanding in potato responses to stress – important for future potato crop breeding strategies – I took advantage of the systems biology field; a field I plan on staying in for some time still.