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IPK Leibniz-Institut/ K. Koch
Šimon Pavlů
“The opportunity to work at IPK was priceless”

Since many years the IPK Leibniz Institute and the Association for the Promotion of Crop Plant Research Gatersleben e. V. (Gemeinschaft zur Förderung der Kulturpflanzenforschung Gatersleben e.V.) have been running the Visiting Scientist Programme for Master and PhD students from transition countries in Europe. This joint programme enables young scientists to spend three to six months researching at the IPK. One of them is Šimon Pavlů from the Czech Republic. In this interview, the young scientist talks about his experiences and impressions at the end of his stay at the IPK.

How did you find out about the IPK Leibniz Institute?

I have found out about the institute through my supervisor Dr. Hana Šimková, since our institute - the Institute for Experimental Botany in Olomouc (Czech Republic) - and the IPK have a long history of cooperation, especially my IPK supervisor, Dr. Martin Mascher.

You were also in his research group, what exactly did you do at IPK?
In the research group, my main focus has been on the bioinformatic analysis of barley epigenomic data.

And what are you working on at your institute in Olomouc?
My work at our institute is, I would say, closely linked with the research conducted here at the IPK, since we are currently working also on the barley genome, specifically concerning the characterization of promoter regions using different transcriptomic/epigenomic techniques.

What new impulses did you get at the IPK for your further scientific work?
Here at the IPK, there are a great number of different seminars almost every day. I was able to observe all kinds of different projects. All of these really opened my mind to what might be possibly done in future research. Since I am still in my second year as a PhD student, I am always open to learning new techniques. I was most interested in some of the epigenomic techniques and knowledge that I might use in the future of our current research, which some of the researchers presented.

What fascinates you about plant research?
Since mymaster’s thesis was focused on ALDHs in plants, it was just a natural progression to continue research in plants in my following studies…

…excuse me, but can you briefly explain what ALDHs in plants are?
ALDHs, meaning aldehyde dehydrogenases in plants. These enzymes are so far categorized into 27 families, where 14 of those families are present in plants. Some of them play a crucial role in plant metabolism, some are useful during stressful conditions.

My work regarding this was mostly bioinformatical. I have done a phylogenetic analysis of ALDHs throughout several different plants, from simple algae to dicots. Additionally, I have also created a web interface, where you can input a sequence, and based on the ALDH database it will categorize into the 27 families if your sequence is indeed an ALDH.

… o.k. and how do you explain your general interest in plant research?
The thing that really drives me forward in this field is the feeling that our work might help us identify specific genomic structures, that might make the breeding of specific, for example, more resistant plants, possible or at least easier.

What would you like to do later?
Currently, we plan to finish up our barley promoter project. Then we will probably want to look still more into the structure of the barley genome together with branching out into other crops as well.

To what extent did the stay help you to expand your personal network?
The greatest impact on me had the research group of Dr. Martin Mascher, a team of excellent people. But as I mentioned before, IPK organized even some on-site events so I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of other interesting people as well. Between them, luminaries in their fields, such as Prof. Nils Stein or Prof. Andreas Houben.

How would you rate the visiting programme after your current experience? And what could still be improved?
The visiting program is really great. The opportunity to work at the IPK with such an awesome group of people was priceless and definitely helped me a lot with my research as well as I am glad I was able to contribute to Dr. Martin Mascher’s group. I haven't had any problems during my stay, so I have no criticisms.

 

Note:

Currently, the fifth Call for Applications for the Visiting Program is open.
For details click here.