What the Nucellus Can Tell Us

Highlighted Author Profile

Wenjia Xu

Highlighted Paper: Xu et al et al. (2016). Endosperm and Nucellus Develop Antagonistically in Arabidopsis Seeds. Plant Cell. Advance Publication May 27, 2016; doi:10.1105/tpc.16.00041.

Current Position: Postdoctoral researcher, Shanghai center for Plant Stress Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Education: PhD (2014) in Plant Molecular Biology at Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin (IJPB), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA, Versailles), and also at the University of Paris-Sud in France; MS (2010) in Cell Biology at the Northeast Forestry University in China.

Non-scientific Interests: Mountain hiking, climbing, shopping and karaoke with friends.

My first introduction to science was my father explaining rules of plant growth on a farm in my childhood. I still remember looking forward to sprouting time in spring and harvesting fruits in autumn as a child. I started to love science and later chose plant science for a major in my university studies, with the goal of understanding mechanisms at work inside plants. After finishing my B.Sc., I pursued my master's degree in the lab of Dr. Xiufeng Yan at the Northeast Forestry University in China to investigate the interaction between plants and the environment. I realized that we need to understand plants at the molecular level to explain ecological problems, and therefore wanted to have further study abroad. Fortunately, I got an offer to earn my Ph.D. with Dr. Loïc Lepiniec and was co-supervised by Dr. Christian Dubos in my studies of transcriptional regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis. During my Ph.D., we worked on the transcriptional regulatory pathway leading to proanthocyanidin and anthocyanin biosynthesis in Arabidopsis. In the meantime, I have obtained a solid foundation for science research through a 4-year theoretical and practical training. I am very lucky for the great opportunity to continue research in the same group as a postdoc under the supervision of Dr. Enrico Magnani. We are investigating the development of the gametophyte and surrounding maternal tissue, and this work sheds new light on the molecular mechanisms underlying seed tissue partitioning and architecture, as described in this paper. The work we did really fascinated me, and it gave me the enthusiasm and confidence to move on in science. I am deeply grateful to all my supervisors, who give me these opportunities to pursue science and also have faith in my maturation as a scientist with great patience and support.