Sara Farrona

Sara graduated in Biology and afterwards joined Dr Reyes lab at the IBVF in Seville (Spain) where she received her PhD working in chromatin remodeling proteins in Arabidopsis. For her postdoc she moved to Cologne (Germany) to work with Dr Turck and Prof. Coupland at the MPIPZ in the regulation of flowering by chromatin related processes. Later on she focused in the regulation of plant development by PcG proteins working in Dr Schubert lab at the HHU (Duesseldorf, Germany). Sara is a PI at the University of Galway since 2015 where she also teaches as member of the College of Science and Engineering.

Mohan Govindasamy

Mohan is from India where he received his BSc degree in Horticulture from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. Then he did a MSc degree in Biotechnology at Punjab Agricultural University. Afterwards, he worked as a data analyst for a year before returning to research as a research fellow at IBAB in Bangaluru to study epigenetic modifications in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Mohan has obtained a scholarship from the CRT in Genomics Data Science to help us to understand the role of UBP5 in chromatin dynamics.

Saqlain Haider

Saqlain is from Pakistan, where he graduated in Plant Sciences from Quaid-i-Azam University. He then did a MSc from the same university and his final project focused on monocot crops, which helped him to acquire a background in both wet and dry techniques. Saqlain is now helping us to understand the evolution of new components of the PcG pathway and studying their impact on the acquisition of developmental traits throughout evolution as a member of the SFI Frontiers for the Future Inter-PWOs project.

Kiruba Nedounsejian

Kiruba comes from India, where she did her bachelor’s in applied microbiology at IGCAS. She then completed her postgraduate diploma in Biotechnology from Pondicherry University and moved to Germany to pursue her master’s in plant biotechnology, physiology, and genetics at Leibniz University Hannover, working on CRISPR genome editing of tetraploid potatoes for studying osmotic stress tolerance. As a member of the SFI Inter-PWOs project, she investigates how chromatin-associated PWOs and their interacting molecules regulate plant development. 

Nora Pasquali Medici de Biron

Nora is from Mexico where she received her BSc degree in Biotechnology Engineering from the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Thereafter, she realised plants were her real calling and completed her MSc degree in Plant Biotechnology in Wageningen University specialising in molecular plant breeding. Now she joined our lab as a member of the EpiSeedLink MSCA Doctoral Network. She is interested in the epigenetic mechanisms of the memory to seed osmopriming.

Killian Hanniffy-Spillane

Killian is from Galway and did his BSc at the University of Galway. He undertook his final year research project with us in 2021-22 focused on understanding the effects of UBP5 on plant organ development and flowering time. Killian has returned to our lab to do an MSc to study another PcG interactor and understand its role in the regulation on flowering and aging.

Louise Murphy

Louise is from Ireland and is our Lab Manager and Research Assistant. Louise was a Science student in Galway and worked as a research intern in Prof. Vincent O’Flaherty’s lab. Afterwards, she did a MSc in Biomedical Science and developed an antimicrobial resistance project in Dr Liam Burke’s lab. As part of our lab, Louise has joined the Inter-PWOs team.

Former Lab Members

Godwin James
Godwin finished his PhD with us and got a lot of great results for the UBP5 project. He is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri. He has joined the Shah’s lab and is developing an exciting project about antimicrobial peptides for plant resistance. All our best wishes for this new step!

Ronan Halton
Ronan left us to follow his dream of living in Australia where he is now enjoying his new life and experiencing a lot of adventures! Good on ya!

Andrew Enright
Although the COVID 19 situation shortened Andrew’s stay in our lab, Andrew helped us to analyse some of our novel Arabidopsis mutant lines. Andrew is now finishing his BSc exams and plans to look for a job in the following months. We know that with his motivation he will soon find success!

Eduardo March
Eduardo was the first student of our lab in finishing his PhD. He made an extraordinary effort in characterising new components of the PcG pathway as well as setting up the lab and contributing to supervise other lab members. He is back in Madrid where he is hunting for a job to follow up his biotech career. All the best of luck!!!

John Skehan
We are very grateful to John, who carried out pioneering work to establish P. tricornutum as a model organism in our lab. John successfully finished his MSc in Biotechnology at NUI Galway and is now developing a career in this area.

Cecilia Rengifo Rojas
Cecilia visited our lab as part of an internship after the first year of her MSc in Biology at Clermont Auvergne University in France. Cecilia was a very enthusiastic contributor to our research topic on new PcG components and helped us to further understand their role in the regulation of chromatin and plant development. We wish her all the best for her final MSc year and future career in science. Ánimo, allez Cecilia!

Thales Ribeiro
Thales joined our lab as a Science Without Border student to do a summer internship focused on the analyses of genomic and epigenomic data. Afterwards he went back to Brazil where he is a MSc student in the lab of Dr. Antonio Chalfún at the Federal University of Lavras.

Amandine Lucchin
Amandine was visiting us for a few months as part of an internship during her MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA). After helping us to study some novel PcG interactors, Amandine is back in Grenoble to finish her MSc and planning to follow up with a career in science. We wish her all the best for her future!

Kazhina Amin
Khazina was a PhD student in the Plant Production and Technologies at the Ömer Halisdemir University (Niğde, Turkey). She joined our lab as an Erasmus student to do an internship focused on understanding how some of our new PcG candidates respond to abiotic stresses. Khazina moved back to Turkey for a few weeks before moving for a short period to Pakistan. Khazina’s future plan is to follow up her scientific career in USA, where we are sure that she will enjoy her new life!

Peter Ryder
After almost a year with us as a postdoctoral fellow in which Peter’s contribution was fundamental for different research lines in our lab, Peter has decided to expand his knowledge in computer science. We wish him all the best in his new adventure!

Michael Keogh
Michael did his MSc project in Biotechnology with us and contribute to our understanding on seed priming in different Brassicaceae species. Michael is now enjoying life and travelling for a few months. Afterwards, we are sure that he will not have any problem to find a job in a Biotech company.

Julie Laugerotte
Julie did an internship in our lab as part of her MSc in Agronomy and Biotechnology at the Université de Rouen (UFR Sciences et Techniques). She helps us to investigate the role of some of our novel PcG candidates in stress and did a great job in setting up the protocol in our lab to analyse the plant response to abiotic stress. Julie is now back in France finishing her degree.

Jesús López
As founder member of the Farrona lab, Jesus’ contribution has been invaluable. He helped us to set up the lab when we started four years ago and, in addition to his own projects, has been supporting other members’ work and has been responsible for the organisation of the lab. Now he has joined Prof. John Dalton’s lab, which has recently joined NUI Galway, and has changed plants for animals to work in liver fluke. We will miss him a lot but wish him all the best in his new position!

Ana Belén Benítez Tellez
Ana was a visiting Erasmus+ student from Spain. Her enthusiasm was essential to set up experiments to grow Phaedodactylum tricornutum under different light conditions. Ana is back in Spain where she will soon join a MSc programme in Biotechnology.