Sonhita Chakraborty: Plant Physiology First Author

Sonhita Chakraborty, first author of “CYCLIC NUCLEOTIDE-GATED ION CHANNEL 2 modulates auxin homeostasis and signaling”

Current Position: PhD candidate at the Yoshioka lab, Department of Cell & Systems Biology at the University of Toronto

Education: MSc in Plant Agriculture (University of Guelph), BSc in Biology (McMaster University)

Non-scientific Interests: Backcountry camping, creating visual art and playing the guitar

Brief bio: I have been studying plants in various capacities for nearly a third of my life. I started by studying plants in the classroom and working at various community farms. A small undergraduate project exploring the evolutionary biology of kin recognition in plants piqued my interest in scientific research. While evaluating the agronomic performance of bio-renewable plant-based sources of plasticizers in field trials, I noticed the need for a more rigorous exploration of the underlying biology of the germplasms I was using. My desire to understand plant signal transduction following biotic stress brought me to Dr. Yoshioka’s lab at the University of Toronto. Using various genetic and phenotyping approaches, I show that the calcium channel CNGC2 plays an important role in auxin signaling. This project snowballed into more side projects that are of ongoing interest. As I wrap up my contributions to this project, I am leaving with even more questions than what I started with.