Started out in Kraków with calcium signalling and glutamate receptors in Arabidopsis, then got hooked on wood. During my PhD at Jagiellonian University I worked on both primary and secondary cell walls in trees, across both gymnosperms and angiosperms. I trained in polysaccharide biochemistry in Paul Dupree’s group, and later in mechanistic approaches in Sarah Robinson’s group, both in Cambridge. Along the way I led my own project on the transcription factors behind secondary cell wall formation in spruce and the redox control of their activity. Now in Umeå, still chasing the same question: how a tree decides to make wood, and why it bothers.
