Recognizing The Plant Cell first authors: Roshan Kumar

Roshan Kumar, co-first author of Molecular Basis of the Evolution of Methylthioalkylmalate Synthase and Diversity of Methionine-Derived Glucosinolates

Current Position:  Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Department of Biology, Washington University, Saint Louis, USA

Education: Ph.D. in Plant Molecular Biology, National Institute of Plant Genome Research, New Delhi, India

Non-scientific Interests:  Cricket, reading, and cooking

Brief bio:  I did my Ph.D. on studying the regulation and function of heterotrimeric G-proteins in Brassica crops.  From the past few years, I have been working in the area of plant metabolism and eventually developed a lot of interest in this area. During my Ph.D., I parallelly started working in the area of glucosinolates, one of the key secondary metabolite in the order Brassicales. I find myself interested in understanding the regulation of plant metabolites synthesis, especially focusing on how plants make such a wide array of primary and secondary metabolites and what regulates the synthesis of taxa and species-specific compounds. Over a decade, great advances have been made in the area of plant metabolic engineering; however, comprehensive understanding regarding the fundamentals of plant metabolism, like mechanistic and regulatory details controlling the biosynthesis of diverse plant metabolites, has not been well explored.  As a post-doc in Prof. Jez’s lab, I am currently working on these aspects of plant metabolism and highly motivated to continue my research career in the area of plant biochemistry.