Meet the team

Marisol leads the lab from the Plant Science Centre. She trained in plant pathology at a university and as a postdoc in a plant-pathogen group at an institute, where she developed the gnotobiotic Medicago systems still used by the lab today. Her work bridges classical genetics with rhizosphere ecology — she likes problems where the same gene matters at the level of a single cell and at the level of a hectare of soil.

Henri keeps the lab running. He coordinates the gnotobiotic plant facility, the field-site partnerships, and a startling number of sterile Medicago lines. He completed his MSc on soil microbial ecology at a university in 2019 and has been with the lab since 2021. Outside the lab he runs cross-country and bakes very dark rye bread.

Aishwarya investigates how legume hosts distinguish friend from foe at the cell-surface receptor level. She trained in plant immunity at a research centre and joined the lab in 2023 on an international long-term fellowship. Her current project asks why some rhizobial strains successfully colonise Lotus japonicus root nodules while genetically similar strains are excluded at the epidermis.

Léa’s thesis explores how arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi modulate host phosphorus uptake under drought stress. She uses live imaging in transparent soil systems and is in her third year. She co-supervises the lab’s outreach programme with local secondary schools.

Daniyar develops synthetic biology approaches to extend nitrogen-fixation capability into non-legume hosts. His PhD focuses on identifying the minimal symbiosome machinery from Medicago truncatula that can be expressed in cereal model systems. He joined the lab in 2024 after an MSc at a research university.

Mei runs the lab’s shared molecular work — qPCR, library prep, amplicon sequencing — and supports the gnotobiotic plant facility. She trained at a technical university and joined the lab in 2022. She also coordinates the annual rhizosphere-sampling field season.