Plant developmental biology
I’m interested in studying how developmental processes are regulated at cellular level by endogenous and exogenous signals.
Currently I’m studying the first formative division of liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, an emerging plant model system for evolutionary biology. I would like to understand how a unicellular spore gives rise to two cells with different cell fates by asymmetric cell division.
Using genetic and cell biology tools I aim to address the following questions:
- what are the cellular processes of asymmetric cell division in Marchantia spores?
- what are the major molecular components of the cell fate determination in Marchantia spores?
- evolutionary conservation of asymmetric cell division between divergent plant linages?
