Elena obtained her PhD in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Pilar Cubas at the National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC) in Madrid, Spain. Her research focused on strigolactone signalling in Arabidopsis, specifically studying the degradation of the strigolactone receptor AtD14 and its role in plant development. After completing her PhD, she joined Prof. Inge De Clercq’s lab, which focuses on Inter-organelle Stress Signalling, as a postdoctoral scientist. Currently, Elena holds a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, aiming to unravel the interactions between chloroplasts, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and mitochondria, with the goal of identifying the complex molecular mechanisms involved in inter-organelle communication.

Jonas De Backer graduated in 2019 as Master of Bioscience Engineering: Cell and Gene Biotechnology (Bio-engineer) at the faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University. During his master thesis under the guidance of Prof. Monica Höfte and Dr. Inge De Clercq at the Oxidative Stress Signaling group of Prof. Van Breusegem, he was involved in the study of the post-translational activation of transcription factors involved in retrograde signaling of plant stress responses. On the 1st of January 2020, he started his PhD in the EOS project Retrograde Arabidopsis Chlamydomonas Thiol signaling (ReACTs) to further study this topic while applying for an FWO predoctoral fellowship for fundamental research which he obtained that same year. Now he is doing his joint PhD entitled “Identification of proteases that activate membrane-bound transcription factors during mitochondrial retrograde regulation“ in the inter-organellar signaling lab of Prof. De Clercq in collaboration with the lab of Prof. Monica Höfte (Lab of Phytopathology, Ghent University) and the lab of Prof. Frank Van Breusegem (Lab of Oxidative Stress Signaling, PSB VIB-UGent).

I did my Master thesis at the Functional Interactomics group in 2019-2020. During this year, I explored the approach of mining the TOR-SnRK1 nutrient signalling network towards higher yielding and stress resilient plants via  combinatorial CRISPR screens. Intrigued by the research and encouraged by the warm atmosphere in the group, I decided to apply for an FWO-SB mandate in order to continue this quest and contribute to a more sustainable and climate robust agricultural system. When I am not in the lab, I am always eager to jump on my bike for a trip, enjoying nature and being inspired and ready for new challenges!

Inter-organelle Stress Signalling

To be able to survive constantly changing and often harmful environmental conditions, plants must continuously adapt. Therefore, plants have complex mechanisms that sense and transduce environmental stimuli into adaptive and defence responses. Organelles within the cell are thought to be important sensors of such stresses, such as water limitation or pathogen attack. They communicate their stressed status with the nucleus to activate tolerance mechanisms and defence responses against the incoming stresses. We have previously revealed a novel mechanism of how mitochondria, chloroplasts, and the endoplasmic reticulum communicate stress signals to coordinate stress signal transduction into adaptive responses in the nucleus. However, we still lack a profound mechanistic understanding of how organelles cooperate with each other during stress responses. The signalling sources within the organelles, their release and/or propagation, and their perception by other organelles and eventually by the nucleus are still enigmatic. Therefore, the Inter-organelle Stress Signalling team performs studies to understand the complex organelle-organelle and organelle-to-nucleus cross-talk using high-end multi-omics and cell biology approaches.