Anna Amtmann | |
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Alma mater | Heidelberg University (BS) University of Göttingen (MSc, PhD) |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of York University of Glasgow |
Thesis | Ca2-360 und NA+ im Cytoplasma der Meeresalge Acetabularia : Aktivitätsbestimmungen mit ionenselektiven Mikroelektroden und kinetische (1993) |
Anna Amtmann is a German scientist. She is professor for Molecular Plant Physiology at the University of Glasgow. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Plant, Cell & Environment .
Amtmann studied languages, mathematics and biology at the University of Paris and Heidelberg University. [1] She was an Erasmus Programme student at the University of Barcelona. [2] Amtmann completed her graduate degrees in biology in the laboratory of Dietrich Gradmann at the University of Göttingen. [2] Her doctoral research involved the use of electrophysiology to study unicellular marine algae, in an effort to understand how they maintain homeostasis for calcium and sodium ions.
In 1993, after earning her PhD, Amtmann investigated ion transport properties in barley in Dale Sanders' laboratory at the University of York. Whilst at York she developed microarrays that could be used to monitor how ion transporters responded to nutrient deficiency and salinity. [1]
Amtmann was appointed a lecturer at the University of Glasgow in 2001 and was promoted to Professor in 2014. She spent 2007 on sabbatical at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Golm. [2] Her research considers the mechanisms by which plants adapt to nutrient deficiency, drought and salinity. She has explored how solar-powered microorganisms could be used to extra salt from seawater. [3] [4] Amtmann's research has been supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. [5] She is a co-director of Algae UK, one of six Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBBs) that look to support the UK's transition to a low carbon economy. Algae UK looks to increase research and development into high value products created from microalgae and macroalgae, as well as increasing attention to cyanobacterial synthetic biology. [6]
Amtmann is the editor-in-chief of Plant, Cell & Environment . [7]
Amtmann is married to Pawel Herzyk, who she met during her first postdoctoral position at the University of York. [2] Together they have twin boys. [2]
An endosymbiont or endobiont is an organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism. Typically the two organisms are in a mutualistic relationship. Examples are nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which live in the root nodules of legumes, single-cell algae inside reef-building corals, and bacterial endosymbionts that provide essential nutrients to insects.
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain the required amount of nutrients causes malnutrition. Nutritional science is the study of nutrition, though it typically emphasizes human nutrition.
Photosynthesis is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabolism. Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds like sugars, glycogen, cellulose and starches. To use this stored chemical energy, an organism's cells metabolize the organic compounds through cellular respiration. Photosynthesis plays a critical role in producing and maintaining the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere, and it supplies most of the biological energy necessary for complex life on Earth.
Vitamin K is a family of structurally similar, fat-soluble vitamers found in foods and marketed as dietary supplements. The human body requires vitamin K for post-synthesis modification of certain proteins that are required for blood coagulation or for controlling binding of calcium in bones and other tissues. The complete synthesis involves final modification of these so-called "Gla proteins" by the enzyme gamma-glutamyl carboxylase that uses vitamin K as a cofactor.
Halotolerance is the adaptation of living organisms to conditions of high salinity. Halotolerant species tend to live in areas such as hypersaline lakes, coastal dunes, saline deserts, salt marshes, and inland salt seas and springs. Halophiles are organisms that live in highly saline environments, and require the salinity to survive, while halotolerant organisms can grow under saline conditions, but do not require elevated concentrations of salt for growth. Halophytes are salt-tolerant higher plants. Halotolerant microorganisms are of considerable biotechnological interest.
In cellular biology, active transport is the movement of molecules or ions across a cell membrane from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration—against the concentration gradient. Active transport requires cellular energy to achieve this movement. There are two types of active transport: primary active transport that uses adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and secondary active transport that uses an electrochemical gradient. This process is in contrast to passive transport, which allows molecules or ions to move down their concentration gradient, from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration, without energy.
Plant nutrition is the study of the chemical elements and compounds necessary for plant growth and reproduction, plant metabolism and their external supply. In its absence the plant is unable to complete a normal life cycle, or that the element is part of some essential plant constituent or metabolite. This is in accordance with Justus von Liebig's law of the minimum. The total essential plant nutrients include seventeen different elements: carbon, oxygen and hydrogen which are absorbed from the air, whereas other nutrients including nitrogen are typically obtained from the soil.
Nutrient sensing is a cell's ability to recognize and respond to fuel substrates such as glucose. Each type of fuel used by the cell requires an alternate pathway of utilization and accessory molecules such as enzymes and cofactors. In order to conserve resources a cell will only produce molecules that it needs at the time. The level and type of fuel that is available to a cell will determine the type of enzymes it needs to express from its genome for utilization. Receptors on the cell membrane's surface designed to be activated in the presence of specific fuel molecules communicate to the cell nucleus via a means of cascading interactions. Nutrient receptors are receptors that are primarily designed to perform the function of nutrient sensing, whereas other receptors are extensively multifunctional and perform many functions besides nutrient sensing. In this way the cell is aware of the available nutrients and is able to produce only the molecules specific to that nutrient type.
Dale Sanders, FRS is a plant biologist and former Director of the John Innes Centre. The centre is an institute for research in plant sciences and microbiology, in Norwich, England.
Dunaliella is a single-celled, photosynthetic green alga, that is characteristic for its ability to outcompete other organisms and thrive in hypersaline environments. It is mostly a marine organism, though there are a few freshwater species that tend to be more rare. It is a genus in which certain species can accumulate relatively large amounts of β-carotenoids and glycerol in very harsh growth conditions consisting of high light intensities, high salt concentrations, and limited oxygen and nitrogen levels, yet is still very abundant in lakes and lagoons all around the world.
Arthrospira is a genus of free-floating filamentous cyanobacteria characterized by cylindrical, multicellular trichomes in an open left-hand helix. A dietary supplement is made from A. platensis and A. maxima, known as spirulina. The A. maxima and A. platensis species were once classified in the genus Spirulina. Although the introduction of the two separate genera Arthrospira and Spirulina is now generally accepted, there has been much dispute in the past and the resulting taxonomical confusion is tremendous.
Zeba Islam Seraj is a Bangladeshi scientist known for her research in developing salt-tolerant rice varieties suitable for growth in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. She is currently a professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka.
Usha Vijayraghavan is an Indian molecular biologist. She is on the faculty of the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, at the Indian Institute of Science. Her major research interests are Molecular Genetics, Plant Development.
Plant, Cell & Environment is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The editor-in-chief is Anna Amtmann.
Alison Gail Smith, Lady Hopper is Professor of Plant Biochemistry in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research investigates the metabolism of plants, algae and bacteria, in particular vitamin and cofactor biosynthesis.
Anthony William Derek Larkum is a British plant scientist and academic based in Sydney. He is professor emeritus of plant sciences at the University of Sydney and adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
Helen Walden is an English structural biologist who received the Colworth medal from the Biochemical Society in 2015. She was awarded European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) membership in 2022. She is a Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Glasgow and has made significant contributions to the Ubiquitination field.
Sabeeha Sabanali Merchant is a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the photosynthetic metabolism and metalloenzymes In 2010 Merchant led the team that sequenced the Chlamydomonas genome. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.
Marine primary production is the chemical synthesis in the ocean of organic compounds from atmospheric or dissolved carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it also occurs through chemosynthesis, which uses the oxidation or reduction of inorganic chemical compounds as its source of energy. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production. The organisms responsible for primary production are called primary producers or autotrophs.
Christoph Benning is a German–American plant biologist. He is an MSU Foundation Professor and University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Benning's research into lipid metabolism in plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria, led him to be named Editor-in-Chief of The Plant Journal in October 2008.