Biochemical Journal Poster Prize Winner

Saikat Bhattacharjee

Saikat Bhattacharjee was admitted to Purdue University, Indiana in 1998 to pursue a Ph.D. degree in plant molecular biology. There, he joined the laboratory of Professor Stan Gelvin and pursued his research interests in the field of "Identification of plant genes involved in agrobacterium-mediated transformation". The specific area of research was the characterization of involvement of plant importin a gene family members in agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Arabidopsis thaliana. He identified that agrobacterium preferentially utilizes a single member among the nine isoforms present in Arabidopsis to establish transformation. In 2004, after the completion of his Ph.D. degree, he joined the lab of Dr Peter Moffett at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, New York, to study anti-viral defence in plants. His research identified that anti-viral responses during gene-for-gene resistance targets the invading virus by translational inhibition. Since 2008, he has been working as a Research Scientist in the lab of Dr. Walter Gassmann at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia. His current research aims to understand the function of SRFR1, an Arabidopsis protein that negatively regulates plant innate immunity.