Redundant ERF-VII Transcription Factors Bind to an Evolutionarily Conserved cis-Motif to Regulate Hypoxia-Responsive Gene Expression in Arabidopsis

Author Profile

Philipp Gasch

Highlighted Paper: Gasch et al et al. (2015). Redundant ERF-VII transcription factors bind an evolutionarily-conserved cis-motif to regulate hypoxia-responsive gene expression in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell Advance Publication December 14, 2015; doi:10.1105/tpc.15.00866.

Current Position: Medical Representative at Quintiles Germany GmbH in Bremen.

Education: PhD, Department of Plant Physiology, University Bayreuth, Germany.

Non-scientific Interests: Being a proud father, baking and cooking, athletic sports.

At the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen/Germany I studied biology to satisfy my interest in the complexity of life. I soon found both a scientific topic and an organism which drew my attention: Signal transduction in Arabidopsis thaliana. I investigated the mechanism underlying nuclear translocation of light-activated phytochrome A during my M.Sc. research. Fascinated by complex yet elegant pathways that transmit abiotic signals into plant nuclei, I searched for new research opportunities in this field. My PhD project started in the lab of Angelika Mustroph in 2011. In the same year, the discovery of an elusive plant oxygen sensing mechanism was published which described the low oxygen-dependent stabilization and nuclear translocation of a group of transcription factors resulting in differential gene expression. At that time, the nature of the cis-regulatory part of this mechanism was only hypothesized, giving me the great opportunity to add important knowledge about a major plant signaling pathway.