Francisco Ignacio Jasso Robles: Studying plant-pathogen interactions

Francisco Ignacio Jasso Robles wanted to be a scientist since childhood but never imagined working outside his native Mexico. Meeting his current colleagues Nuria De Diego and Lukáš Spíchal at a conference in Argentina started a big transformation. Francisco has now been at CATRIN for two years working on plant-pathogen interactions in the Phenotyping research group.

“I am specifically interested in polyamine metabolism and its key role in combating biotic stress. My approach involves the use of non-invasive methods of high-throughput phenotyping and metabolomics, as well as molecular biological and biochemical analyses. The aim is to comprehensively understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of infection development in plant cells and gain insights into the subtle interplay that controls a plant´s response to disease agents,” explained the young scientist, who studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with a focus on plants at the Universidad de San Luis Potosí and also taught students.

It was the experience of Olomouc scientists in this field and the sophisticated instrumentation available that inspired him come to CATRN. He describes this decision as his greatest success so far. “An important milestone on this journey is my recent success in winning a Palacký University grant for young researchers. It allows me to advance my research, but I also consider it a great achievement for a Mexican scientist abroad. It strengthens my commitment to contribute to the results of our scientific community, while at the same time overcoming barriers and showing that it is good to connect researchers from different backgrounds,” he added.

In the future, he wants to expand his multidisciplinary collaboration and would also like to inspire and motivate the next generation of scientists. “When I think about my current position, I find that I am living the dream I have had since I was a child — becoming a scientist ,” he concluded.