Current Position: Post Doc researcher at the Department of Plant Molecular Physiology, Botanical Institute, University of Cologne, Germany
Education: Belarus State Pedagogical University named after M.Tank, Minsk, Belarus
Non-scientific Interests: classical music, ballroom and Latin American dance, down-hill skiing
I was born in Georgia, a tiny republic squeezed between the Black and Caspian Seas with an ancient past (you may remember the Greek Argonauts sailing to the legendary Colchis and stealing the Golden Fleece), 3,000 years of statehood, and membership in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. For my scientific education, I entered the Belarus State Pedagogical University in Minsk, which is ~2000 km from the capital City of Georgia. My studies in Minsk focused on general biology and chemistry, and I earned my PhD degree at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in 1998. In January 2001, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics disintegrated, I was fortunate to be given an opportunity to come to Germany as a Post Doctoral researcher. Since 2002, I have focused my research on plant secondary metabolites and their regulation at the Department of Plant Molecular Physiology at the University of Cologne. The finding that the BAT5 transporter plays an essential role in Met-derived glucosinolate biosynthesis is an exciting part of our project, not only because BAT5 is the first chloroplastidic transporter identified in this pathway, but also because the exchange of various metabolites between chloroplasts and the cytosol seems to be regulated in unpredicted ways.